http://downtownexpress.com/de_295/undercover.html
Jenga collapse?
Work has stopped at 56 Leonard St., where an 830-foot tower of stacked condo cubes is slated to rise.
Izak Senbahar, principal at the Alexico Group, said workers finished the foundation about a month ago and are pausing before moving onto the aboveground construction. In the meantime, Con Edison is doing underground work, which will take until the end of January.
But Senbahar also needs to get the last chunk of the $600 million project’s construction financing before work can move forward. The bank Eurohypo is supposed to provide it, and Senbahar said he is 90 percent sure it will come through in four to six weeks. If the money takes any longer to arrive, 56 Leonard’s December 2010 opening will not happen.
Senbahar did not sound as impervious to the economic downturn as he did in September, when he said he was confident his Jenga-shaped building would attract buyers no matter the economy.
“It’s a very challenging world,” Senbahar said last week. “It’s a different world than it was three months ago… It’s never about people not having the money, but it’s a mood thing, a psychological thing as well that makes people buy.”
Senbahar said sales are in the double digits, but he admitted he’s only sold four units since the sales office opened October. Senbahar also hasn’t sold any of the 10 penthouses, which cost up to $33 million.
“There are a lot of lookers, though,” Senbahar said.
He is optimistic that the country’s mood will turn around early next year.
UnderCover also spoke to a few workers at and around the site, who first told us two weeks ago the site was at a standstill.
Across the street, a man smoking a cigarette sounded none too pleased about the tower.
“Yeah, it’s another Bloomberg special,” he said.
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