Today YIMBY has an update on progress, or lack thereof, for 303 East 44th Street, situated along East 44th Street between First and Second Avenues in Midtown East, which is tentatively set to stand 600 feet to its rooftop. The tower is being designed by ODA Architects and developed by Triangle Assets, with 44 condominiums spanning between 1,000 to 2,000 square feet apiece. Renderings were revealed nearly three years ago in 2015, however, since then, there has been no clear progress. The site is still home to two small red buildings, one of which is four stories tall, and the other standing three stories. It is unclear when they will come down, but it is most certain that they are still standing.
The site of 303 East 44th Street where the upper floors of the three-story building have been inspected and marked as vacant with a restaurant/bar still active on the ground floor. Photo by Michael Young
When complete, the units inside 303 East 44th Street will take up about 88,000 square feet of space throughout the skyscraper, divided by a series of sculptural, organic voids and flaring columns that form private outdoor landscaped terraces overtop the city. They create the illusion of lifting and floating of each glass-enclosed section of condominiums, and the massing and height of each section gets smaller towards the top of the flat roof.
303 East 44th Street looking southwest, designed by ODA
If built, the building should be far enough from surrounding skyscrapers to stand out on its own.
Completion of the tower was anticipated for 2017, but since the current two low-rise buildings on site have not been demolished yet, that date is for now uncertain, and the entire design may be slated for change if the current version has not yet left the drawing board.
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Please pardon me for using your space: I have to stay in advice on its design and. Hey! I never seen it before. (Beautiful)
last I heard, there was a holdout.
It is sad that cute and beautiful historical buildings are demolished. It seems after 200 years all of them will be gone and only glass boxes will remain. Future generations wont have an opportunity to see what we are seeing. Even though they might seem unimportant now in the future views would change and they might become cherished and protected like European old towns.
“Cherished and protected” European towns are anything but. The presumption of historical permanence based on law is ridiculous. Wars, disasters, etc all happen. European towns will only be protected until there is another war / etc (as unimaginable as it may seem, one day, be it decades or hundreds of years from now, it will happen again), and then, what remains will simply remain. Treating buildings as if we have an ability to truly protect them BEYOND structures that are monumental is generally a waste of time, although incidental preservation should most certainly be incentivized.
“Nikolai Fedak” exhibits a fatalistic and materialistic ignorance and arrogance that verges on amorality. This person should be made aware of European History in the areas of Architecture & Urbanism before he ventures into any further efforts at issuing disinformation. The absurd claim that patrimony in Europe defies protection especially against the effects of “war” is dispelled as utter nonsense when one studies the form of cities like say Warsaw (whose center was assiduously rebuilt to replicate hundreds of buildings bombed flat to the ground) or Carcassonne (its iconic ramparts destroyed by war and decay, rebuilt from ruin by Viollet Le Duc, ‘the Great Restorer’). The lesson for Mr.Fedak is this: where there is pride, love and intelligence and where strong values exist, cherished places will endure, yer even through the most unspeakable destruction, and where none of these factors exist, where only a base materialism exists, all will be readily thought expendable and replaced without a second thought. Frankly pronouncements like this one by Mr.Fedak are chilling and all too representative of ‘dark forces’ currently afoot to be exposed for their demagogy and destructive amorality.
You do realize Warsaw was obliterated in WWII? I spent three years of my childhood in Germany. Are you implying places like Tokyo do not have culture, since they did not rebuild identically to pre-WWII designs? What about Seoul’s modernization? Hong Kong? The world extends beyond Europe, and housing has ALWAYS been replaceable, the point at which it has become otherwise is the modern day when people like you prefer keeping old buildings intact instead of providing a basic standard of habitation for all.