425 Park Avenue

[Derek2k3]

L&L filed an early new building permit.
http://a810-bisweb.nyc.gov/bisweb/Jo...ssdocnumber=01

Says 905 feet- pretty tall for just 42 stories. That's slightly shorter than Citigroup. Maybe that number counts the fins.
They're hoping to break ground in 2015 and hopefully the city will allow them to take advantage of the rezoning before 2017.

[stache]

So this is a proposed design, subject to approval?

[Derek2k3]

Yep. I don't think they're allowed to put up a new building of this size without the rezoning or a special approval. They would have filed an alteration permit if they were going with the original plan of demolishing down to the lower floors and rebuilding above.

[stache]

Ok my bad. I assumed that rendering was for the original plan.

[Derek2k3]

I like this building.

[stache]

I'm not crazy about the base.

[londonlawyer]

I like the shape but hate the cladding. If the rezoning passes, I wonder if there will be a new design or if Foster will just add another tier to this.

[LeCom]

The building as of July 26, 2014

[Merry]

Park Avenue Is About to Get Something It Hasn’t Seen in 40 Years

After decades in deep freeze, New York's sacred avenue is about to get a new skyscraper

by David M Levitt

Sometime next week, a metal frame will go up around the blocky brick tower at Manhattan’s 425 Park Ave., designed to protect pedestrians from falling objects. It’s a prelude to the building’s demise.

In about three years, if all goes according to plan, the site will have a new Norman Foster-designed skyscraper more than twice the height of the existing one. The replacement would be the first new office building in almost four decades on what the developer, David Levinson, called New York’s “grand boulevard of commerce.”


425 Park Ave.

The 893-foot (272-meter) tower will rise amid Manhattan’s biggest rush of skyscraper construction since the 1980s, with millions of square feet of offices in such projects as Hudson Yards on the far west side and the World Trade Center downtown. Levinson is building “on spec,” meaning without any tenants signed up. It’s a gamble on the staying power of today’s accelerating demand for space, and a practice that’s had a checkered history in the city, said Lawrence Longua, a retired real estate professor at New York University.

“Obviously, when you begin one of these large New York office buildings, the market is there when you begin it,” said Longua, now an adjunct at Baruch College’s Newman Real Estate Center. “But the market may not be there when you complete it.”

The new Park Avenue skyscraper, between East 55th and 56th streets, will be narrower than the existing 1950s-era building, and have about the same 670,000 square feet (62,000 square meters) of floor space. The developers are touting it as a 21st century answer to the neighboring Seagram Building, which was hailed as an architectural masterwork upon its 1958 completion.

Glass Tower

Plans call for the existing 425 Park, a commonplace stack of white-brick boxes, to be replaced by a 47-story glass tower with three distinct sections. Slanted glass will mark the transitions between the base and the middle, and middle and top sections. The bottom floors will extend over the 45-foot-high lobby, creating offices that will seem to float over Park Avenue.


425 Park Ave. Sky Garden

Full article at Bloomberg

[EastMillinocket]

The ground-floor spaces are being vacated in advance of demolition.

The Duane Reade has already closed



and the signs stripped off the facade



Staples is closing this month


And the bank branch's last day is Monday.

[EastMillinocket]

[Tectonic]

Pretty big demo.

[kz1000ps]

[Tectonic]

I wish all sidewalk sheds across the city could be this respectful.

[kz1000ps]

Seriously! I actually stood there for a few seconds admiring its robustness.