NEW YORK | 425 Park Ave | 860 FT | 42 FLOORS

[RobertWalpole]

I suspect that this tower will be marketed to small users, such as hedge funds, VC firms, and PE firms which don't need huge floor plates and want maximal views. I think that this could be around 850 to 900 feet tall.

[Dac150]

^^^ I'd bet 600' - 750', however I agree with the types of tenants you suggest - maybe a Fortress or Blackstone might get tempted to get some more modern digs.

[Crawford]

I think the height depends on whether they utilize the new zoning, which is supposedly being fast-tracked.

If they can build 30%-40% more space, I could easily see a 1000 ft. office tower for hedge funds and the like. If they don't have the extra development rights, then something somewhat shorter will be more likely.

[scalziand]

The site is currently zoned for ~450,000 sf, less than the existing building of 567,000 sf.

30% more air rights would be barely enough to make the current building permissible.

Of course, more could be obtained by using the plaza, arcade, etc. bonuses.

[reencharles]

edit

[babybackribs2314]

I see this as being neither tall nor remarkable.

Anything below 700' fails to make any impact on Midtown East, and I think it's doubtful they exceed that height (if they do, not by much). They don't have the necessary FAR.

432 Park is going to be practically across the street, as well. It would have to be extremely tall to make an impact next to the city's future tallest by roof.

I wonder if the 'starchitect' competition is a front, as this just doesn't seem like an opportunity for something huge (although buildings like Hearst are quite nice). Could also just be PR for the first of dozens of sites that will be redeveloped after the upzoning.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by scalziand

The site is currently zoned for ~450,000 sf, less than the existing building of 567,000 sf.

30% more air rights would be barely enough to make the current building permissible.

Of course, more could be obtained by using the plaza, arcade, etc. bonuses.

No, the zoning doesn't work like that if you keep the building foundation.

You can built up to the current built form if you keep the foundation structure, meaning the upzoning would be from the existing building size. Current FAR (Floor Area Ratio) is irrelevent if you keep the base.

So if the zoning is increased, say 30%, it would give you a maximum floor ara of 737,100.

A good example of this would be Time Warner Center, which kept the base of the previous structure (NY Coliseum) and is technically an alteration, not a new building.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by babybackribs2314

Anything below 700' fails to make any impact on Midtown East, and I think it's doubtful they exceed that height (if they do, not by much). They don't have the necessary FAR.

I have no idea if this building will be tall, short, or whatever, but they appear to have about as much FAR as 432 Park. They could probably build as tall as 432 Park if they chose this route (skinny hotel or residential).

But, assuming they go with office space, they will need larger floorplates, so the tower should be shorter. Who knows how much shorter, though. Depends on the rezoning and the floorplates.

[RobertWalpole]

Originally Posted by babybackribs2314

I see this as being neither tall nor remarkable.

Anything below 700' fails to make any impact on Midtown East, and I think it's doubtful they exceed that height (if they do, not by much). They don't have the necessary FAR.

432 Park is going to be practically across the street, as well. It would have to be extremely tall to make an impact next to the city's future tallest by roof.

I wonder if the 'starchitect' competition is a front, as this just doesn't seem like an opportunity for something huge (although buildings like Hearst are quite nice). Could also just be PR for the first of dozens of sites that will be redeveloped after the upzoning.

I could see it going a lot taller. A huge corporate user isn't going to sign on here for $125/sf. This building will attract a lot of small, very high-end users. I would not be surprised if high-floor tenants pay over $150/sf. I expect a tower between 800 and 1,000 feet with small floor plates.

[NYguy]

I think 600 ft would be fine for this location, 700 ft great. Anything more would also be great. The building will be larger, but not by that much. They want architects to submit designs now, so I don't think they are banking on much of what the City plans to do with rezoning. It's not clear is this is one of the sites that rezoning would apply to anyway (not every site will be impacted by it). Anyway, the Central Park views will start around 300 ft...



http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-0...ice-tower.html

New York Developer Seeks Designs for Iconic Office Tower

By David M. Levitt
Apr 23, 2012

L&L, whose principals include developers David Levinson and Robert Lapidus, are seeking a replacement for the 32-story tower that currently sits at 425 Park Ave., between East 55th and 56th streets. That 552,000 square-foot building was completed in 1957, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

The new tower would be about 650,000 square feet and have Central Park views on the upper floors, the company said. L&L expects construction to start in 2015, with completion by the end of 2017.

The architects’ responses are due in early May and L&L expects to select finalists by the middle of the month. Final selection probably will be in October, the company said.

[RobertWalpole]

I look forward to this one!

[njcco]

Could they do this as a mixed-use tower with setbacks, so there would be wider floor plates on the lower part of the building topped with a thinner setback tower for hotel or residential?

[RobertWalpole]

L & L Holdings' website (http://ll-holding.com) shows a new glass building on the site of 425 Park. Obviously, however, its not what will rise on the site.

[NYguy]

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/busines...ZpMl2UedQXsPwM

May 15, 2012
Steve Cuozzo

The “iconic” new building L&L Holdings plans to replace its obsolescent 425 Park Ave. with could be a lot more iconic if the city rezones the Grand Central office district before 2015, when work is to begin. Right now, L&L plans on keeping 25 percent of the tower’s core while it entertains design proposals from “starchitects” including Sir Norman Foster and Renzo Piano for a mostly new structure.

That’s because retaining one-quarter of the existing structural steel would be the only way L&L could replicate the tower’s roughly 600,000 square feet under existing zoning, which dates to 1961. Incredibly, the 1961 zoning requires new buildings near Grand Central to be roughly 25 percent smaller than those constructed in the 1950s.

“If they make the modification to City Planning, we would do full demolition and take advantage of it,” L&L Chairman/CEO David W. Levinson said of the $750 million project. It would allow him to create a truly new building “and would give the architects a freer hand,” he said.

The 32-story building, opened in 1957, is built to a floor-area ratio of 20. If L&L were to tear the whole structure down and start from the ground up, its replacement could be built only to an FAR of 15 under 1961 rules. But although L&L needs to start planning soon, it still has some time, since it can’t start work until 2015 when leases expire.

The first public warning about zoning limitations near Grand Central was sounded last winter by CBRE regional CEO Mary Ann Tighe, who’s also chairman of the Real Estate Board of New York. In a speech at Columbia University’s Center for Urban Real Estate, Tighe noted that although many office towers in Midtown’s most desirable commercial area are out of date, landlords were unlikely to replace them because “most are overbuilt under current zoning.” She said of the Grand Central-area structures: “Sure, you can keep the existing FAR if 25 percent of the structural steel is saved, but then you’d end up with a compromised design, with slab heights and column spacing sacrificed so as not to lose valuable square footage.”

L&L might not have to compromise as much as some other owners, thanks to certain technical characteristics of the existing 425 Park Ave. But it isn’t hard to guess that Levinson & Co. would prefer not to compromise at all.

[Towersteve]

Originally Posted by Busy Bee

This statement is kind of bullshit. Saying that about some palatial chateau neo-mansion, but a gorgeous uplifting edifice in an urban environment, viewable by all social classes is a public good - it's beauty and generative emotion does not benefit the "1%" anymore than the "99%."

Remember when developers and financiers used expressions like "for the enjoyment of the city..." et cetera, et cetera?

Interior designers may cringe, but for me the privately held interiors of a commercial building are the back of the painting.

Plus this isn't a website about the occupy movement. It's about skyscrapers. Skyscrapers that will provide good construction jobs and create a home for good office jobs. I think it's amazing this can even be attempted. Building a supertall inside an existing building would be amazing.

[NYguy]

Quote from a 4-page article on the rezoning...


http://observer.com/2012/06/faulty-t...-get-it-right/

Faulty Towers: Midtown Needs a Makeover, with Twice as Tall Towers,
But Can Mayor Bloomberg Get It Right?


Midtown, 2025? (Photo composite: Ed Johnson/NYO; Photos: Getty)



It all starts with Grand Central. (Getty)


By Matt Chaban
6/27/12

It was but one line in Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s State of the City address in January, but it could prove to be one of the biggest of his dozen years in office. “In the area around Grand Central, we’ll work with the City Council on a package of regulatory changes and incentives that will attract new investment, new companies and new jobs,” the mayor said from the stage inside Morris High School in the Bronx.......Now, it is time to remake the middle of Manhattan, to redevelop one of the most developed swathes of land in the world.

.......“While new windows and HVAC systems can be installed, the fundamentals of ceiling heights and column configurations are fixed,” Mr. Zucckerman, chairman of Boston Properties and owner of a number of buildings in the area, including the iconic Citicorp Tower, said in an email. “To incentivize owners to empty leased office buildings and replace them simply requires that a much higher density be allowed.”

An initial proposal is to be released on July 11, and the city hopes to begin the arduous public review process by the first quarter of next year—just before the notorious countdown clock at City Hall blinks off.



425 Park, in its prime. (Eral Soto)


One need look no further than 425 Park Avenue for proof of the problems with Midtown’s current zoning. One of those bland mid-century grandees, all flat glass planes, it was completed in 1958 and spans an entire block on Park. David Levinson, a partner at L&L Holdings, would tear down the 32-story behemoth if he could and replace it with something better. He is in the rare position of owning a building that will be empty of tenants coming 2015—normally a bad thing, were L&L not set on ridding itself of the low ceilings and column-choked spaces that fill the space.

“It’s an entire block-front on Park Avenue, and that opportunity hasn’t existed in my lifetime,” Mr. Levinson said with relish. But he is confronted with the challenge of the zoning having changed three years after his tower was built, and were he to replace it, he would be left with a much smaller building. It is a problem faced by landlords all across Midtown East. His clever real estate attorneys have determined that he could demolish all but the bottom quarter of the building and build up from there, getting as close to a new building as one could hope for. He has convened a private competition between 10 of the world’s top architects to solve this vexing problem.

Naturally, his fingers are also crossed that the city might solve this problem for him. “The zoning does not make this easy, but that’s the way it is, and we’re going to comply with that,” Mr Levinson said, “unless something changes.”

[NYguy]

http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article...TATE/307089970

City Hall: Supersize midtown's east side
Massive upzoning effort to encourage bigger towers for aging office district

By Theresa Agovino
July 8, 2012

With 14 Fortune 500 headquarters clustered in the office towers on midtown's east side near Grand Central Terminal—the greatest density of such companies in the U.S.—the area looms large in the international business world. But fearing that midtown east's aging building stock will diminish the district's corporate allure, the Bloomberg administration is finalizing a rezoning blueprint that would encourage office teardowns and the construction of even bigger commercial towers with premium amenities. It may also include a proposal said to be favored by Planning Commissioner Amanda Burden: turning Vanderbilt Avenue, the short block west of Grand Central, into a pedestrian-only street.

City officials are set to release details this week of the proposal to upzone the area with 80 million square feet of office space. Sources said officials hadn't determined the size limits on new buildings, although discussions considered expansions ranging from 22% to more than 100% greater than what's now allowed, depending on location and current zoning. The larger sizes would likely be allowed only on midtown avenues and on the streets closest to Grand Central, which sits beneath more than 1 million square feet of unused air rights.

The hope is that the rezoning will trigger the building of enough new Class A towers to keep the city competitive in the global market for top talent and industry in the coming decades. Such buildings could include features like high-ceilinged, column-free floor plans and plentiful sources of power to run high-tech operations. Only two new office buildings have been constructed in the midtown east zone in recent years: 300 and 510 Madison Ave. The average age of buildings in the zone is 73 years, with 80% of the structures older than 50. In contrast, the average age of a London office building is 43, according to the city's study; in Chicago's Loop, only 54% of the buildings are older than 50.

The city's zoning rules determine a crucial development yardstick called a floor-to-area ratio, or FAR, which ultimately determines the size of a building that can be constructed on a site. In midtown east, some vintage towers built before the current zoning went into effect in 1961 exceed what could be built there now. That means if a landlord demolished one of them, only a smaller property could replace it. To help reverse that development disincentive, sources said the planning department had discussed raising the area's FAR to 18 to 26 from the current 12 to 15.

It's possible that buildings in midtown east could grow even larger than what the city's revised zoning permits. That's because there are 1.35 million square feet of unused air rights above Grand Central that developers could conceivably buy to boost the size of their buildings. Rezoning alone would not spark a mad dash for the wrecking balls. Landlords need deep pockets to go without rent revenue for several years as they empty a building of tenants, demolish the structure, rebuild bigger and better, then lease the place anew. Most owners likely will be content keeping their solid if stodgy midtown properties as they are.

Still, some midtown buildings could take swifter advantage of the new zoning opportunities than others. L&L Holding has said it plans to tear down 425 Park Ave. after tenants' leases expire in 2015, for instance. Advertising agency Y&R owns and occupies all of 285 Madison Ave., which is for sale. A new owner could opt to tear down the 1920s-era structure, where a woman died last year in a grisly elevator accident, and start over.

[NYguy]

http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/20...k-avenue-site/

Four Leading Architects Compete for a Rare Park Avenue Site







July 10, 2012
By DAVID W. DUNLAP

The developer David W. Levinson could have set for himself the simple task of commissioning a better-designed tower for 425 Park Avenue than the one that’s been there since 1957. But that would have been a very low bar. Most anything would be an aesthetic improvement over the current 425 Park — a bulky, 31-story wedding cake of a structure designed more by zoning rules than by architects (though Kahn & Jacobs received the nominal credit). Its facade seems to suggest that the developers wanted to create a steel-clad look on a white-brick pocketbook.

In 2015, when his L&L Holding Company is expected to gain control of the site, Mr. Levinson intends to construct an office building for tenants willing to pay a premium for a high-profile design at a conspicuous location, between East 55th and 56th Streets. He has engaged four of the world’s leading architects to compete for the job: Norman Foster of Foster & Partners, Zaha Hadid of Zaha Hadid Architects, Rem Koolhaas of OMA, and Richard Rogers of Rogers Stirk Harbour & Partners. The four firms began to make their presentations privately on Tuesday and will complete them on Wednesday.

“We’ll see their designs, sort through that over the summer and make some decisions,” Mr. Levinson said in an interview last month. By “we,” he includes an advisory committee headed by Vishaan Chakrabarti, the director of the Center for Urban Real Estate at Columbia University. Mr. Levinson intends to unveil the competing visions publicly, he said, though there will be no popular referendum. “It is a decision that is solely within our discretion,” Mr. Levinson said, “but we do intend to share it.”

Mr. Levinson said he expected to make a selection by fall. Demolition and construction will not begin until 2015. L&L Holding Company now holds a “sandwich” position between the original developer of 425 Park Avenue and the owner of the land on which it stands, the Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association-College Retirement Equities Fund. Three years from now, the original land lease will expire and L&L Holding will become the leaseholder on the site until well into the 2080s. The office leases will also expire in 2015, bringing to an end what must be one of the longer running commercial tenancies in the city. The law firm of Kaye Scholer has been at 425 Park for 55 years.

There is a further chance that the Planning Commission will raise the floor-area ratio for some prospective development sites in east Midtown to 18, as a matter of right. A presentation of planners’ strategy is to be made Wednesday to Community Board 5. Mr. Levinson said he had asked each of the competing architects to prepare designs for towers that could be built under the current regimen and with a higher density.

Examples of work by the architects competing to design 425 Park Avenue. Upper left: Hearst Tower in New York by Norman Foster. Upper right: Proposal for the Olympic Village in London by Zaha Hadid. Lower left: Plan for 3 World Trade Center by Richard Rogers. Lower right: China Central Television Headquarters in Beijing by Rem Koolhaas.

[Dac150]

An exciting read that was! - this will sure be an interesting process to follow.

[Hudson11]

maybe we can get a supertall proposal with cross bracing if Roger is selected.