NEW YORK | 432 Park Avenue (Drake Hotel dev.) | (1,396) FT / 432 M | 89 FLOORS

[bigreach]

Wow! its like 10 feet from it's neighbor..

[bomberguy]

Rise my baby. Rise!

[sw5710]

The rebar column reinforcement is up to the 13th window level between floors 9 ant 10 or 203' above the lobby.

[hunser]

Originally Posted by bigreach

Wow! its like 10 feet from it's neighbor..

That's New York density for you. We don't build supertalls on vast plazas (even the new WTC is tightly packed) where you need a cab to get to the closest skyscraper. Even in superdense Hong Kong towers like the ICC are being built on huge plots.
And btw 225 West 57th will be the tallest tower every built in such a super dense area.

Great shots everyone.

[NYguy]

Well, I remember there was some concern about the street wall and the way the tower is set back. But I really think it works in this case. It's really only set back on this side (the 57th St side will have storefronts). But its still a very dense neighborhood and the pieces seem to work. If you look at a lot of the other towers going up in Manhattan, there is no space between the buildings.

Originally Posted by NYguy

5.



8.



9.



10.

Just look at the density here....( May 17, 2013 )



www.432park.com

[ablerock]

Originally Posted by NYguy

If you look at a lot of the other towers going up in Manhattan, there is no space between the buildings.

Yeah from my outsider perspective, a 10' gap between buildings in Manhattan is downright excessive. That's how we roll in the midwest where there's plenty of elbow room to spread out, but not in money-makin' Manhattan!

[scalziand]

There's actually a townhouse in between those two towers.

[bigreach]

[QUOTE=scalziand;6132831]There's actually a townhouse in between those two towers.



Maybe a dog house, but a townhouse? I'm don't know if I buy that, there's barely room for a car.

[NYguy]

Here's a look at the footprint again...

[Blaze23]

I can't believe how well high end condos are doing. Just plain ridiculous!

http://m.nyt.com/2013/05/19/nyregion...te-market.html

[/QUOTE]Sky High and Going Up Fast: Luxury Towers Take New York

By CHARLES V. BAGLI
May 18, 2013
Only 10 floors have been completed in what is intended to be the tallest residential building in the Western Hemisphere — a slender, 84-story tower on Park Avenue at 56th Street in Manhattan. But the top penthouse is already under contract for $95 million.

Other buyers have snapped up apartments on lower floors for prices that are almost as breathtaking. While their identities are not known, it is likely that many are the rootless superrich: Russian metals barons, Latin American tycoons, Arab sheiks and Asian billionaires.

Ultraluxury housing and construction is booming across Manhattan, which is now beginning to rival London in popularity with the world’s wealthy. The number of condominium buildings in the borough with apartments selling for more than $15 million has risen to 49, up from 33 in 2009, according to CityRealty.

And an additional 20 or so are under construction or in planning.


Harry B. Macklowe, the developer of 432 Park Avenue, where a penthouse sold for $95 million.
ROBERT CAPLIN FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

“There’s a great deal of interest in New York, which is seen as relatively cheap compared to other global cities,” said Yolande Barnes, director of research for Savills, an international real-estate firm.

The growth in high-end projects in Manhattan comes as housing for the working and middle class is in increasingly short supply in the city. These buildings are proving so profitable that they are warping the local real-estate market, making it more difficult to put up more-affordable housing.

Developers have long complained that the prices of land, construction materials and labor are high in New York, even if they are somewhat less expensive than in London or Hong Kong.

But builders of ultraluxury apartments have much more latitude on costs because they are securing spectacular prices for their projects.

As a result, the luxury building trend is driving up the overall cost of land in the city. Several developers maintained that they could build moderately priced housing only if they could get significant tax breaks.

“There are only two markets, ultraluxury and subsidized housing,” said Rafael Viñoly, the architect who designed the tower on Park Avenue at 56th Street, which is called 432 Park.

The rush to build these towers underscores the gap between rich and poor in New York City, said James Parrott, chief economist for the Fiscal Policy Institute, a liberal research organization supported by unions. He said that median family income in the city had fallen 8 percent since 2008.

“Manhattan’s superluxury condo boom, along with rocketing foreclosures in Queens and record homelessness, present an unobstructed view of accelerating polarization in this recovery,” Mr. Parrott said.

Still, it is not hard to see why developers are flocking to the high end.

Izak Senbahar, the developer of 56 Leonard, a 60-story tower in TriBeCa where penthouses are going for more than $20 million, signed contracts with buyers for 70 percent of the 140 apartments in just 10 weeks.

“We were all surprised,” Mr. Senbahar said. “This was not what we expected. There’s a pent-up demand for condos with helicopter views.”

A decade or two ago, luxury buildings were largely confined to Park and Fifth Avenues.

Today, they are rising all over Manhattan — from One57 and the Baccarat in Midtown Manhattan to 825 First Avenue on the East Side, 150 Charles Street in Greenwich Village and 30 Park Place downtown.

“It’s not that location is unimportant,” said Nancy Packes of Signature Marketing Services. “But it’s now all about bigness, lifestyle and views.”

Determining who is buying many of these properties is a challenge. The superrich often go to great lengths to shield their identities, requiring confidentiality agreements with builders and brokers and using anonymous corporate entities for purchases.

In an interview, the developer of 432 Park, Harry B. Macklowe, said he and his partner, CIM Group, already had contracts for nearly $1 billion worth of apartments at the building. Total sales are expected to surpass $3 billion for a building that will cost about $1.25 billion to complete, he said.

The cheapest apartment in the building, a 351 square-foot studio, costs $1.59 million, according to the offering prospectus.

About half the buyers are foreigners, Mr. Macklowe said.

As with many of these buildings, only about a quarter of the units will be occupied at any one time.

Mr. Macklowe bought and demolished the former Drake Hotel during the real estate boom of 2006 to make way for the tower, before nearly losing the property during the downturn.

Mr. Macklowe said he and his architect, Mr. Viñoly, designed the tower around the “purest geometric form: the square.” The tower floors are 93 feet square; each side of the building has six 10-foot-by-10-foot windows.

“This is the building of the 21st century, the way the Empire State Building was the building of the 20th century,” Mr. Macklowe said.The penthouse has six bedrooms, seven bathrooms and a library. A sculptured bathtub sits in front of a window, offering IMAX-like views of the city. A buyer can also pick up a $3.9 million studio for the housekeeper and a private wine cellar for $300,000.

The building offers residents an indoor-outdoor event space for 350 of their closest friends.

Mr. Macklowe has sought to reach out to potential buyers with a lavish marketing campaign developed by Dbox, an advertising and branding agency. He distributed an oversize glossy magazine around the world that resembles Vogue, with ads from retailers including Armani and Piaget, and essays by writers including Ruth Reichl and Blake Gopnik.

He also produced a short film that places the tower in the context of classic images: the ceiling of the Pantheon, New York movie stills, fashion plates and sculptures by Giacometti.

In one film clip, the aerialist Philippe Petit walks a tightrope that stretches from the Empire State Building to 432 Park with the aid of computer-generated imaging, while Mr. Macklowe emerges from a King Kong outfit.

[Fabb]

Total sales are expected to surpass $3 billion for a building that will cost about $1.25 billion to complete, he said.

He is probably bragging a little bit, but it's still impressive.

[599GTO]

Someone is already purchasing the penthouse at 432 Park building for $95M. That means it's every bit as expensive as One57..perhaps even more. One57 penthouses sold for "more than $90M" so who knows...

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by 599GTO

Someone is already purchasing the penthouse at 432 Park building for $95M. That means it's every bit as expensive as One57..perhaps even more. One57 penthouses sold for "more than $90M" so who knows...

I would assume that 432 Park would eventually be a more expensive building than One57. It's much taller, the floors are much higher, and the building seems somewhat more exclusive, IMO.

But I think 225 W57 could beat them both. We'll see.

[bigreach]

Originally Posted by Crawford

I would assume that 432 Park would eventually be a more expensive building than One57. It's much taller, the floors are much higher, and the building seems somewhat more exclusive, IMO.

But I think 225 W57 could beat them both. We'll see.

They coulda got 200 million had they asked, There's a buyer for everything, and some super-rich typhoon would be the candidate(because he could,, and wouldn't let it go to anyone else). They shoulda had a bidding war, I imagine it woulda fetched far more than 95, they shoulda set the minimum at 95, unless that's illegal to do business that way. I just think they coulda got more especially if One57 got 90, like the other member was saying, this is more attractive, and TALLER, and has a 360 degree view, Best of both worlds Central Park, Midtown, and farther away Downtown Does anybody know the sq footage between the 2. I bet you can see Yankee and Shea stadium from that height.

My bad Just checked out a diagram somebody posted, somewhere, I didn't realize the top 8 floors were mechanical, I was under the impression the Penthouse was the very top and the roof was an option, "or at least some of the roof,, for a small "roof space" for that price,, Nah not worth 95million in my eyes.

Serious question why would they use the top 8 floors for mechanical, couldn't they have had those tied in lower and use the upper 8 for the BIG BUCKS!!! I'm no engineer or architect, but there was no way to put those mech floors 8 floors, below the 8 there going to use, and use the top 8 as condos? Are they worried of exhaust, or other factors I'm unaware to? It Seems like with 8000 square ft you could make some pretty high-tech looking exhaust chutes,(or whatever) going throuh the middle 8 condos, like beams, and fancy them up, like cool chimneys, or places to hang plasma tv's art etc. Is it all the exhaust or whatever their worried about from the maintenance, maybe send it out the side of the bldg? I know somebodies gotta know why they would use that PRIME real estate as maintenance, instead of flip-flopping the 8 floors and their uses.. I'm sure somebody could explain why they would do that? Just seems like a BIG waste of the Top Dollar they're seeking, and definitely woulda got had they been switched, somebody help me out, what am I not seeing here?

[NYguy]

Everybody is looking to the skies...


http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...420710814.html

May 19, 2013
By Eliot Brown

The estate of Leona Helmsley is gearing up to put the Park Lane Hotel on the block, hoping to cash in on surging demand from developers looking for prime sites for ultra-high-end condominiums. The best use of the Park Lane, which was one of the crown jewels in the Helmsley empire, would be to convert all or a portion of it into condos, or to knock it down and build a new condo tower, real-estate experts say. They base this conclusion on the astronomical prices elite buyers have been paying for New York condos as well as the Park Lane's unsurpassed location on Central Park South.

Already, the estate has received at least two separate nonbinding offers of more than $600 million for the property from developers with such projects in mind, according to real-estate executives briefed on the matter. One came from developer Harry Macklowe and the other came from a venture of developer Steven Witkoff and California-based CIM Group.

Buildings and development sites on these blocks used to be coveted as locations for hotels and office buildings. But now top condos are selling for two to three times as much as the best office buildings or hotels. As a result, condo developers are looking to convert or demolish and build on numerous properties that now have other uses.

The former Drake Hotel on Park Avenue and 56th Street has been demolished and a condo tower 146 feet taller than the Empire State Building is under construction in its place. Meanwhile, a developer is planning a more than 900-foot condo tower in the place of Steinway Musical Instruments flagship store on 57th Street, the same block as One57.

The Park Lane, which is four decades old, is able to get rates of more than $600 a night. But it is considered by hotel experts to be past its prime and in need of an overhaul.

Even some successful properties near Central Park are being eyed for a change to residential use. Consider 650 Madison Ave., a 27-story office tower, which has been put up for sale. Although it fetches top-tier office rents, the property's seller is highlighting in marketing material that a buyer would be able to tear it down and build a condo tower, with hotel and retail, in its place once the properties' leases expire. An 800-foot residential tower could be built on the site at 60th Street, according to marketing material sent to potential buyers by advisory firm Eastdil Secured LLC. It's a "development opportunity without peers," the marketing material says.

http://www.property-report.com/penth...-million-29643

Penthouse at 432 Park Avenue under contract for US$95 million

May 20, 2013

The top penthouse of CIM Group’s New York-based 432 Park Avenue development is under contract for USD$95 million. Upon completion, the 84-storey tower will be be the tallest residential building in the western hemisphere.

The penthouse will comprise six bedrooms, seven bathrooms and a library. A sculptured bathtub sits in front of a window, offering IMAX-like views of the city. A buyer can also pick up a US$3.9 million studio for the housekeeper and a private wine cellar for US$300,000. The building offers residents an indoor-outdoor event space with a 350 person capacity. Developer Harry Macklowe along with his architect Rafael Viñoly designed the tower around “The purest geometric form – the square”. The tower floors are 93 feet square; each side of the building has six 10-foot-by-10-foot windows.

Sounds perfect for Dr. Evil.

[detroitmetro101]

though something should be done about the homeless, the way you stabilize real estate prices, in this market, is you allow supply to be build...if there is demand for these luxury buildings to be build, then let them, and prices should eventually come down, unless demand continues, lol. this doesnt seem to be some bubble, where buildings are being build purely out of speculation, like in some cities..., this is awesome news for new york though, imo, i just hope the office market is as healthy, so One can get some competition, or at least WTC completed...very exciting time to be in new york.

[Ed007Toronto]

Damn someone got that suite before me

[hunser]

432 Park Avenue timelaps: Sep.26, 2011 - Feb.28, 2013.

[ablerock]

Originally Posted by hunser

432 Park Avenue timelaps: Sep.26, 2011 - Feb.28, 2013.

That's the same one that's been on the 432 Park site for a while, right?

http://www.432parkavenue.com/new-con...e-lapse-video/

[sw5710]

Floor 10 is 219' above the lobby. All forms are now up to floor the 10th floor. The deck is going down on floor 10 on the 57th Street side.