The team that brought us 15 Central Park South is planning a new offering — with aid from The Salvation Army.
William Lie Zeckendorf and his brother, Arthur Zeckendorf, along with partner Eyal Ofer — co-chairman of Miller Global which controls Eastgate Realty — have brought back “starchitect”Robert A.M. Stern to design a luxurious condominium for the former Salvation Army Building at 18 Gramercy Park South — the equivalent of E. 20th Street.
The contract of sale was signed in May 2007, just before financing tanked. To close the deal this past July, The Salvation Army took back a $40 million mortgage and is getting income from the mortgage payments.
Plans call for the 17-story building to have 15 full-floor residences and two duplexes. Part of the first floor and a mezzanine will be combined into one unit, while floors 16 and 17 will turn into a dramatic duplex. The full-floor, family-sized apartments will spread just over 4,500 square feet — and buyers get a key to the very private and tranquil Gramercy Park.
Approved gut renovation plans for the now vacant former women’s “hotel” were estimated at $14.4 million and filed by John Schimenti, who designed the residential building at 150 E. 57th St. that Bernard Spitzer developed with Lou Brause.
With city condo sales still in the doldrums, don’t expect the project to move quickly. “They are not making more land in the city. It’s not a horse race,” observed one source inside Zeckendorf’s offices.
But with the cost per floor now pegged at $5 million, units could sell for over $10 million. Officially, everyone had a “no comment.”
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It’s back to the drawing board and backup bidders now that we’ve learned Deutsche Bank has backed off an ingenious deal to pay $60 million to buy 72 Wall St. It is next door to its 60 Wall headquarters, and the bank wanted to expand its trading floors while back-filling the upper office stories. The complicated engineering plan — which involved removing floors and aligning others — is likely what tanked the project.
But we’re thinking that rather than turning over the well-placed opportunity to the next bidder in line, Deutsche Bank may want to demolish the current 225,000-square-foot building and erect a modern structure of more than 330,210 square feet into which it could expand its trading floors.
The 1925 Benjamin Winstar Morris building, designed for the Seaman Savings Bank and most recently occupied by AIG as its headquarters, is not landmarked.
“You can buy it for $180.66 an FAR [floor-to-air ratio] foot and it would cost another $800 or $900 a square foot to build, but you would have all the technology bells and whistles you need,” said Robert Shapiro of City Center Real Estate, an air rights and development expert who is not involved in the deal.
Current owners, Youngwoo & Associates and financial partner Kumho Bank, bought 72 Wall along with the connected Art Deco 70 Pine St., which is now being updated with offices, hotel and residences. Darcy Stacom and Bill Shanahan of CB Richard Ellis were hired to market 72 Wall St. as a net lease, but Deutsche Bank would have purchased the building while leaving Youngwoo owning a retail corridor on the ground floor that would enhance 70 Pine.
Stay tuned, and as suspected, no comments all around.
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The irreverent male-targeted content provider, Break Media, and its break.com site are moving their local offices from a business center to 3 W. 18th St. in Union Square.
“It has the nice, hip loft feel that all these crea tive companies are looking for,” said their broker, Elliot Warren, of the Kaufman Organiz ation. Yitzhak Loria Management worked for owner Eitan Kaufman, who had an asking rent of $35 a square foot and is building out nine offices for the company.
