East Harlem’s days of abandoned buildings and vacant lots are receding quickly into the past. Today, we have a rendering for a narrow 11-story residential building at 2150 Second Avenue, between East 110th and 111th Streets.
An interesting piece of both architecture and engineering is under construction in the land just north of Hell’s Kitchen in what is officially Lincoln Square. The project is One West End, located at 1 West End Avenue, which is at the northwest corner with West 59th Street. It features a large cantilevered portion, which has started to grow, and we have photos of the work courtesy of our friend Tectonic.
Property owners Beacon Capital Partners and MetLife (the insurance company) are planning to execute a $25 million renovate on their 35-story, 533,695-square-foot multi-use commercial building at 575 Fifth Avenue, located on the corner of East 47th Street in Midtown. Planned is a redesigned lobby, new exterior and interior elements such as a building canopy, signage/advertising, and lighting, and new amenities such as a 6,000-square-foot conference center and a lounge, Real Estate Weekly reports. The 360,000-square-foot office portion already connects to the building’s three stories of retail and restaurants via an atrium. Barneys New York recently signed on to 72,000 square feet at the tower, and Westpac Banking Corporation and Northwood Investors each have leased 15,000 square feet. The building was developed in 1983.
In April, news broke that Istanbul-based Gulaylar Group entered into contract to acquire the entire 90,000-square-foot office portion of the 20-story, 115,000-square-foot multi-use commercial building at 685 Fifth Avenue, on the corner of East 54th Street in Midtown. The deal includes the development rights to vertically expand the building by five stories. Those air rights were made available after property owners General Growth Properties and Thor Equities repositioned the building’s three stories of retail space, which now measures 23,400 square feet and is being made into Coach’s flagship store. Now, Gulaylar has disclosed plans to convert the office portion they are buying, along with the future expansion, into a 90-key boutique hotel, The Real Deal Reports. Five hotel chains, including Oetker Collection, AccorHotels, and LVMH’s Cheval Blanc, are currently in negotiations with the developer. The building’s remaining office tenant is moving out in August. Walter Marin’s Midtown-based Marin Architects is the architect of record for the expansion.
The neighborhoods north of Bronx Park remain bastions of small, market-rate development. Many of the builders are Albanian and based nearby in Morris Park, an East Bronx enclave populated by Albanians, Latinos, and Italians. One of those projects was filed yesterday at 3365 Cruger Avenue in Allerton, a mostly Puerto Rican neighborhood in the northeastern part of the borough.
