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Manhattan’s Zeckendorfs Embrace Global Buyers With New UN Condos
By Oshrat Carmiel
June 06, 2013
Quote:
The United Nations Secretariat building is visible from every floor of 50 UN Plaza, Arthur and William Lie Zeckendorf’s latest Manhattan luxury-condominium project. It’s also a potential source of buyers.
The development, a 44-story tower under construction on First Avenue near 46th street, will be the Turtle Bay neighborhood’s first new residential project in a dozen years and is poised to set price records for the area. It’s located across the street from the UN, which is built on land assembled by the Zeckendorfs’ grandfather more than half a century ago.
“If you’re a UN ambassador posted here, you can’t get a better location than this,” said Arthur Zeckendorf, standing in a hard hat on what will be the 19th floor of the condo building.
The project is a departure for the Zeckendorf brothers, whose dual limestone towers at 15 Central Park West set the standard for trophy apartments favored by Wall Street bankers and the rest of Manhattan’s local elite. At 50 UN Plaza, they are seeking to lure some of the wealthy buyers from around the world who are fueling demand and price increases at towers such as One57 and 432 Park Ave.
The latest project’s look also will be different, trading the signature style of Robert A.M. Stern -- the New York architect who designed 15 Central Park West and the Zeckendorfs’ 18 Gramercy Park -- for stainless steel and glass. For 50 UN Plaza, the developers turned to Foster + Partners, the London-based firm run by Norman Foster, whose credits include the UK capital’s city hall, Singapore’s Supreme Court and a terminal at Beijing Airport that’s among the world’s biggest buildings. The firm is also designing Bloomberg LP’s European headquarters in London.
International Style
“It was definitely a decision to do a very modern, international-style building, whereas 15 Central Park West and 18 Gramercy are Stern-designed, traditional Park Avenue, Fifth Avenue-type buildings,” said Arthur Zeckendorf, 53. “That was a major decision point: How to design the outside to appeal to your buyer.”
On the exterior, bay windows are stacked on top of one other, threaded together by a horizontal grid of stainless steel and forming three columns that run the length of the building. “Highly reflective” fritted, or textured, glass panels run vertically between the bays, giving the tower a jewel-like appearance, William Zeckendorf, 54, said during a tour of the site in April.
The windows offer residents the “perfect architectural angle” for viewing the UN Secretariat, his brother said as he stood at the edge of one of the bay protrusions, shielded at the time only by orange netting.
City ‘Oasis’
The entrance to 50 UN Plaza’s 6,000-square-foot-lobby, currently a tangle of cinderblocks, will feature a waterfall that will cost as much as $1 million to design and construct, William said.
“Fire and water are the elements of life,” Arthur said. “You come in from the city and it’s an oasis.”
The developers are in talks with a “top restaurant operator” to occupy a 2,000-square-foot venue at the base of the tower, with an open-air terrace facing the UN. The restaurant would provide room service and a private dining area for residents, William said.
New York is No. 1 on a list of “cities that matter” to high-net-worth individuals, according to the 2013 “Wealth Report” by Knight Frank LLP, a London-based real estate consulting firm. The city’s real estate has come “to epitomize the so-called safe-haven market, with overseas buyers looking to escape currency, economic, political and security crises by putting equity into tangible assets,” according to the report.
...at the UN site, the Zeckendorfs see interest coming not just from overseas but from across the street. Standing in their not-yet-finished project, Arthur looked north to Trump World Tower at 845 UN Plaza, and the twin cooperative buildings that his grandfather conceived at 860 and 870 UN Plaza.
“There will be some buyers from all of them,” he said. “We want to be the trade-up building in any given submarket.”
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