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NEW YORK | 985 Fifth Ave | FT | 19 FLOORS

https://therealdeal.com/2022/11/02/e...=feature_posts

Eliot Spitzer plans high-end condo on Fifth Ave
Former governor’s firm files permits to replace luxury UES rental with 26 condos

By Joe Lovinger
November 2, 2022

Quote:

Eliot Spitzer wants to build New York’s next ultra-luxury condo on the Upper East Side.

The former governor’s development firm, Spitzer Enterprises, filed plans for a 26-unit condominium building at 985 Fifth Avenue, between East 79th and East 80th streets. The 19-story, SLCE-designed project will replace a 46-unit rental built by Spitzer’s late father, Bernard Spitzer, in 1969.

This limestone gem will sell out quickly and at very high prices. No city in the world gets prices nearly as high as New York.

https://s13.therealdeal.com/trd/up/2...g-1155x720.jpg

AWESOME news. Makes me wonder if 980 Fifth, the other drab dated tower on the corner will be replaced. I'd be surprised if it wasn't in the near future. Seeing a worn-out banal 1960s/70s residential come down for something that does the location justice reminds me of my all time most hated building of that era is "Madison Green" at 23rd and Broadway. I'll be popping the champaign the day someone proposes raising that abomination.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Busy Bee (Post 9781280)

I concur.

Love that we're tearing down one of the sore thumb/streetwall breaking buildings on 5th ave.

Disappointed but not suprised this follows in the trajectory of decreasing unit counts on the upper east/west side- Replacing 46 average/postwar luxury apartments with 26 ultra luxury apartments.

The ues really needs to bank some larger buildings with smaller units that are more affordable (relatively speaking).

If they're gonna build this, they better do the neighboring tower too.

It will look pretty stupid to have a prewar, then a modern "prewar", then a 60's era-tower. I actually think the block will look slightly worse with the new tower, even though the new tower is clearly 1 billion times better than the old tower, simply bc the two 60's-era towers work pretty well together, even if they're individually ugly.

https://patch.com/new-york/upper-eas...oss-met-museum

https://patch.com/img/cdn20/users/23....jpg?width=726

http://www.nysonglines.com/5av.htm#79st

Quote:

985: A 26-story yellow-brick apartment tower that went up in 1968. It's the main residence of former Gov. Eliot Spitzer, whose family owns the building.

It replaced two townhouses built in 1907 by garment manufacturer Isaac Brokaw for his sons—one at this address, the other at No. 984. They were built in a style that matched Brokaw's own mansion on the corner of the block.

The current building and its neighbor to the south are considerably taller than most area buildings because they took advantage of a zoning rule that granted additional height for buildings that had plazas in front. The value of a plaza on a building that faces Central Park is dubious.

980 (corner): A 26-story co-op from 1966 that replaced the French Renaissance Brokaw mansion, built in 1888—featuring turrets, gables and almost a moat, in what came to be known as the Fifth Avenue style. Its destruction, along with that of Penn Station, compelled Mayor Robert Wagner to sign a landmarks preservation law.

https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-lR19lvVbY...h%2Bavenue.jpg

985 Fifth is another banal piece of junk in a hyper-exclusive location that I’d love to see come down. It’s a coop with 58 units that a developer should buy out, like what GDS did with 417 Park.

https://photos.zillowstatic.com/fp/d...e_800_400.webp-

Yeah, that other Fifth Avenue building should be replaced too. It's crazy to have such a banal tower in that ultra-prime location.

And that location might have more generous Midtown zoning.

oh geez -- i imagined this, but its so painful to see the photos -- i mean how beautiful were the brokaw townhouses and mansion?

just another shameful civic embarrassment by the spitzer family.

the vague render looks nice, so let's see if he can make up for it a bit here.

https://www.curbed.com/2023/07/eliot...ury-condo.html

Eliot Spitzer Can Build His Faux-Prewar Condo Now

By Kim Velsey

Quote:

Former governor Eliot Spitzer, who now helms his family’s real-estate company, has received city approval to replace an Upper East Side rental tower his father built in 1970 with a luxurious limestone-clad condo, 6 Sq.Ft. reports. Earlier this week, the Landmarks Preservation Commission greenlit the new 19-story tower at 985 Fifth Avenue. (The sole voice of dissent came from a commissioner who liked the design but objected to razing and rebuilding for environmental reasons.)

The new design is faux prewar, with a limestone façade and setbacks, a specialty of Sofield Studio, which has worked on a number of similar projects in the neighborhood that did bonkers sales. Upper East Side buyers have been flocking to ersatz prewar condos designed by Sofield, Robert A.M. Stern, or Peter Pennoyer, paying upwards of $10 million to $20 million, even for apartments in less-than-ideal locations, like off Third Avenue, to escape the headache of co-op boards, renovations, and sad basement gyms. (The amenities in new construction towers are predictably over the top.)

But 985 Fifth, between 79th and 80th, has one of the best addresses in the city, a rare parkside spot that only a few other new construction condo towers — 15 Central Park and 220 Central Park South, both of which did record-breaking sales — have had the benefit of.

Quote:

Despite all this, the process hasn’t exactly been easy for Spitzer, thanks to the co-op next door. That building, 980 Fifth, sued to stop him from building on a ditch at the back of the property — which he owned — arguing that since it had been using the ditch to store construction supplies for some time, squatter’s rights applied. Spitzer has called the lawsuit “an embarrassment.”

No one, save 980 Fifth who will likely lose its storage pit, will be upset to see the 1970 luxury rental currently on the site disappear, least of all the LPC. While it was fancy for its time, and is still pretty fancy for this one, with rentals going for $10,000 to $25,000 a month, it was a generic, beige, terrace-studded 1970s tower whose tenants will have no trouble finding some other $15,000-a-month place to live when their lease is up. As one LPC commissioner said at the hearing: “The existing building is non-contributing and frankly, I’m pleased to see it come down.”