http://observer.com/2014/01/robert-a-m-s...ill-make-one57-residents-wildly-jealous/
Robert A.M. Stern’s Limestone Skyscraper at 220 Central Park South Poised to Make One57 Residents Wildly Jealous
By Kim Velsey
1/15/14
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After waiting for nearly a decade to develop its property at 220 Central Park South, tussling first with the residents of the existing building on the site, then with Extell, Vornado obviously wasn’t taking any chances when it came to the project’s design. The developer tapped Robert A.M. Stern, the maestro of historicist mega-luxury behind three of the city’s biggest hits—Superior Ink, 15 CPW and 18 Gramercy Park (though not all of his projects have been runaway successes. Ahem, One Museum Mile)—to carry off its rare foray into residential development. And, looking at the renderings, which were first published by Curbed, 220 Central Park South may be his biggest hit yet.
Mr. Stern has been criticized for his accessible, super sale-able designs in the past—like Candela, he clearly knows how to give the rich exactly what they want—and this newest skyscraper is likely to cement his reputation. Is the design likely to help Mr. Stern win the Pritzker? No. Will it probably sell out ever faster than 15 CPW? Barring a global economic cataclysm, yes.
The renderings, which have since been pulled from the Sun Lab website where Curbed found them, looks like a super-charged version of 15 CPW: the skyscraper, slated to be a towering 920-feet tall, is clad in limestone—what real macher would settle for simple glass and steel?—with floor-to-ceiling windows to take advantage of insane park views, extraordinarily high coffered ceilings and herringbone wood floors, as well as a vehicle courtyard and opulent entrance with a reflecting pool. A building primed to net those elusive billionaires if there ever was one. Whereas One57 can at times look oddly cheap despite its airplane views and $90 million penthouses, 220 Central Park South looks magnificently expensive, a subtle, luxurious rebuke to all the coolly-refined glass cube apartments rising along the corridor to its south.
Or maybe not so subtle, at least in the case of One57, which one of the renderings of 220 Central Park South shows unfinished, its ill-fated crane beside it (the crane is no longer up at the almost-finished tower). A coincidence, or a dig at the developer who held Vornado’s site hostage with a long lease on the property’s parking garage, which it finally agreed to vacate for the not insignificant sum of $194 million last fall? (Vornado also had to shift the position of its tower to accommodate the new super-luxe tower Extell is planning to build—its third—on 57th Street.)
But while 57th Street may be the new billionaire’s row, no matter how many blingy towers rise along it, there’s no denying that Central Park South is the better addresses.
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http://jewishbusinessnews.com/2014/01/16...-condo-project-overlooking-central-park/
Steven Roth’s Vornado Realty Trust Prepares Needle Tower Luxury Condo Project Overlooking Central Park
Clive Minchom
Quote:
Needle shaped luxury residential condominium towers continue to proliferate in New York City, almost as fast it seems as bamboo grows in the jungles of Asia.
Now another one is about to be born at 220 Central Park South, close to Columbus Circle and developed by Vornado Realty Trust, headed by Steven Roth.
These new mega tall residential towers depend for success on two new trends. The first is simply the triumph of marketing, where the higher you build the more you can now charge the luxury buyer per square foot, who may be desperately seeking that extra element of exclusivity to validate his/her sense of worth and exceptionalism.
The second is a technical one, the development of new high speed elevator technologies, that can carry people safely and reliably up and down to great heights, at very high speeds. A needle tower is usually inherently an inefficient building form in economic terms, as there is just no room in the core for multiple elevator banks. For commercial office buildings they still do not work, as the volume of people going up and down all day can still not be accommodated no matter how fast the elevators go.
For residential developments, with far fewer people going in and out they can now work very well however as fewer elevators are now required. Mind you it may still happen, say at 8-15 am every morning, if everyone is taking the kids to school at the same time the owner of the top floor penthouse of such a building may have to wait longer than he might like. However I guess the main purchasers in these buildings will by now be mostly empty nesters anyway. Let us hope so, otherwise their new definition of luxury may take a substantial dent after a while after they have moved in.
For the sake of peace, and to allow both companies to get on with building their projects, and finally make some money, recently Vornado and Extell each realigned the plans of their own new building project slightly to help both have good views of the Park, in a sign of rare cooperation. In addition, Extell sold back to Vornado a lease they had on the parking garage underneath 220 Central Park South even though it still has five years to run.
The architectural design theme of many of the recent new residential towers has been lots of flush tinted glass, as well exemplified by another Extell recent project on West 57th Street, called One57, now nearing completion.
By choosing post-modernist architect Robert Stern to design this new building Vornado sent a signal that they might do something different, and boy have they ever. Robert Stern has now delivered up a limestone-clad masterpiece that will define the landscape of that part of town for a long time to come.
Professor Stern is Dean of the School of Architecture at Yale and it seems he doesn’t actually like the term post-modernist as applied to himself. Personally, however, I think the term fits very well into the context of this building, and context is what he himself prefers to emphasize in any case when he offers up the alternative description “modern traditionalist” to cover his own work.
Quite simply this is a very beautiful building that uses the choice of stone as its predominant material to great advantage. In keeping with the essence of post-modernist ideology it also emphasizes both the top of the building, which here is subtle and definite and instantly identifiable, and the street level. And, it does so in this case with very subtle flourishes – unlike the original Phillip Johnson post-modern attempt to do this with the AT&T building, which later became Sony’s headquarters for many years. That effort simply looks totally clumsy by comparison, just as it did on the day it opened too, at least to this writer’s eye.
At a meta-level the story of this building project is a story about the renewal of New York, about new lamps for old. Many old structures are being torn down all over the city now as it seeks to keep pace with the needs of growth through greater density and higher-rise developments. Of course there is a price to be paid; not all the structures being demolished around town may be quite ready for it, though most of them likely are, and there are social costs to be incurred as well. Separately, for example, Vornado are going to tear down a famous old book shop, the Rizzoli Bookstore, on West 57th sTreet, for another project and it is not clear yet how the old Steinway building is going to fare under its new owners. Vornado for one have promised to help relocate the book store. But for the city of New York the pluses obviously outweigh the minuses as the city continues to grow with renewed exuberance.
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NEW YORK is Back!
“Office buildings are our factories – whether for tech, creative or traditional industries we must continue to grow our modern factories to create new jobs,” said United States Senator Chuck Schumer.
Last edited by NYguy; Jan 19, 2014 at 4:52 AM.
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Although 4 digits would sound quite prestigious here. Regardless, it's perfect!
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