[NYguy]

Originally Posted by JMKeynes

This sounds potentially amazing!!!

https://www.crainsnewyork.com/real-e...-citys-tallest

Wow!



Macklowe's Midtown tower would be among the city's tallest

JOE ANUTA
January 19, 2019

Developer Harry Macklowe is planning an audacious Midtown office tower to cap a long career of high-wire dealmaking and development.

The 82-year-old will submit his plans for the 1,500-plus-foot spire across the street from St. Patrick's Cathedral to the city next week, kicking off a public review process for a development likely to cost more than $1 billion. It will be built by transferring hundreds of thousands of square feet of development rights costing tens of millions of dollars from the church.

The tower, which would rise midblock between East 51st and East 52nd streets, features unusual elements, including a tapered, stiltlike midsection that will prop up the height of the floors above. The highest floors will feature a multilevel observatory. According to several people who have seen Macklowe's proposal, he has envisioned a clear, plastic or glass-enclosed slide that would protrude from the building's exterior, giving riders the vertiginous sensation of soaring high above the city.

The building's mass-damper—a large, water-filled mechanism to reduce sway in supertall towers—would be on display with an accompanying seismograph that charts the energy of the movement it muffles.


For years Macklowe has been quietly purchasing low-rise properties to assemble the site on which the tower would rise. As Crain's reported this week, Macklowe Properties recently locked down the third acquisition out of the five reportedly being targeting for the structure's footprint, though the company may have more in contract.

Macklowe has been telling stakeholders that project would cantilever over the landmarked John Pierce residence on East 51st Street, include an observation deck near the top and feature a public space near the base, though his plans could change as the process moves forward.


To build the more than 1 million-square-foot building, Macklowe needs to secure hundreds of thousands of square feet of air rights. Several sources familiar with his plans said he will acquire a large tranche from St. Patrick's Cathedral, which owns more than 1 million square feet of unused development rights. To make the transfer, Macklowe must go through the city's uniform land-use review procedure, a process that requires public review and approval from the City Council.

The tower would be even larger than Macklowe's last project, a nearly 1,400-foot luxury condo building at 432 Park Ave., about five blocks away. The building's apartments fetched some of the highest prices ever for city residences.

While the tower's height seems certain to trigger backlash from some development watchdogs, at least one appeared amenable to the design - a potentially encouraging initial sign for a project that must pass through a public review. An executive at the Municipal Art Society, which is based in the Look Building directly next door to the planned skyscraper, said that the construction of such spires were exactly what the 2017 rezoning of East Midtown was meant to spur.

"MAS is not anti-development and not against tall buildings," said Tara Kelly, a vice president at the organization, who said Macklowe plans to give the group a more detailed presentation on the planned tower next week. "At first blush, this tower makes sense."

It wasn't immediately clear if Macklowe will secure any air rights for the building through a district-wide pool that was created by the rezoning and that would require he contribute money into a fund for neighborhood public realm improvements.