Back in January, the Daily News reported that Gordon Haskett & Co. was set to convert and expand an old parking garage at 152 East 87th Street into a residential building, and the story came with an image for the project. YIMBY now has a few additional renderings that give a better idea as to the development’s appearance, as well as updated details, with alteration applications approved as of last week.
The squat 6-story garage will get a boost to 19 floors, increasing from 60 to 210 feet in height. Ismael Leyva will be designing, and while it was initially reported the project would have 60 units, the alteration application lists only 56 residences, split over about 120,000 square feet, for a unit average of approximately 2,150 square feet. Permits also divide the project between East & West towers, although they seem to appear as a singular building in the renderings.
152 East 87th Street, image by Ismael Leyva Architects
Perhaps the most positive aspect of the development is the reduction in the auto-oriented nature of the property, as its capacity will decrease from 550 parking spaces to 150. The garage will extend from the basement through the first three floors of the towers, and each of the “separate” buildings will have two to three units per floor on their lower levels, with a smattering of duplex and full-floor units up top.
152 East 87th Street, image by Ismael Leyva Architects
Making New York a more pedestrian-friendly place should be an obvious priority, but from our neolithic parking requirements to recent rhetoric regarding the wildly successful pedestrianization of Times Square, it is clear that the issue is not nearly as important to our local political leaders as it should be. And while developers may voluntarily include parking in projects aimed at super-wealthy buyers like 152 East 87th Street, forcing anti-urban parking minimums on the outer boroughs is unfair and unnecessary.
Despite the new building’s auto-centric lower levels, 152 East 87th Street will still fill a gap in the Upper East Side’s fabric, and the project will join a rapidly-lengthening list of new developments in the neighborhood. Around the corner, a 65-unit mixed-use condominium project is in the works at 1289 Lexington Avenue, and over at 180 East 88th Street, DDG is planning the tallest building above 72nd Street, which will also house condominiums.
While no completion date has been announced, the recent approval of permits likely means activity should soon begin, and a late 2017-early 2018 delivery estimate for 152 East 87th Street would not be unreasonable.
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