[chris08876]

Looks like this will be 54 floors. Hotel + Condo.

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First came the scaffolding, another latticelike structure blocking a sidewalk in front of a Manhattan building. And just in case the tenants in five buildings near 57th Street and Fifth Avenue did not get the message, demolition work started on a sixth, adjoining building.

After decades spent buying one small parcel after another across from his masterwork, the swooping office tower at 9 West 57th Street, the developer Sheldon Solow is finally ready to build.

Mr. Solow, a billionaire who turns 89 this month and is now in a hurry, hired Skidmore Owings & Merrill to design a sleek 54-story hotel and condominium tower to take its place on what has become known as Billionaires’ Row.

There is a problem, however. The owners of Metropolitan Fine Arts and Antiques, and the largest remaining tenant at 10 West 57th Street, do not want to go. They contend that they have a valid lease and do not want to leave what they believe is a fabulous location, near the plush Bulgari store and opposite Bergdorf Goodman.

Early in June, Mr. Solow’s company issued a five-day notice terminating the lease. The two sides are scheduled to fight it out in State Supreme Court on Thursday.

“The lease was canceled,” Mr. Solow said in an interview. “They violated it.”

In the annals of New York’s real estate, battles between landlords and tenants and even between property owners are common and as bloody as any cage fight in a city where the median price for an apartment is more than $1 million.

Over 60 years as a developer, Mr. Solow has acquired a well-earned reputation for patience, stubbornness and ruthless litigation, with hundreds of lawsuits under his belt against enemies, friends, banks and blue chip tenants.

But he is going up against David Rozenholc, the lawyer representing Metropolitan. Mr. Rozenholc fought Donald J. Trump to a standstill in the 1980s when he tried to evict tenants at 100 Central Park South in order to build a condominium tower.

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https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/04/nyregion/sheldon-solow-57th-street.html