Architect and developer Soo K. Chan says he borrowed design inspiration for his new condo project in Chelsea from the colonial houses of his childhood, in the cosmopolitan island city of George Town, Malaysia. He drew on the architecture of the city’s clan houses, long multi-family homes built around a central, open air courtyard.
Late last year, news broke that E&M Associates and Eiran Gazit were planning to build a 49,000-square-foot Times Square tourist attraction in part of the 12-story former New York Times Building, an individual landmark at 229 West 43rd Street and 216 West 44th Street (the north building is not landmarked), in Midtown. Now, the team has filed plans with the Department of Buildings for the project, dubbed Gulliver’s Gate, The Real Deal reports. The ground floor portion will include the reception and ticketing areas, as well as a gift shop, while the second will host the main exhibit. The project is expected to begin the city’s Uniform Land Use Review Procedure (ULURP) shortly. It also requites exterior alterations to the 43rd Street side, which will need to be approved by the Landmarks Preservation Commission. Last November, the team signed a 15-year lease for part of the ground floor and the entire second floor of the building. Kushner Companies acquired the retail portion of the property, which also contains office space, in early 2015 for $296 million. If all goes as planned, completion can be expected in 2017. Stanley Wong’s SP WONG Architect is the architect of record.
New York City is full of amazing stories of transformation. Many neighborhoods are dramatically different from the way they were 100 years ago. That’s certainly true of Midtown East, the area around Grand Central Terminal, and it is on the cusp of a new era of transformation. Various city agencies are managing that transformation, which included a rezoning plan abandoned in 2013. It also includes preservation. That’s where the Landmarks Preservation Commission comes into play.
In November 2013, YIMBY revealed renderings for the ME Architect-designed 21-story residential building at 215 West 28th Street, in Chelsea. Then in January 2015, we revealed renderings of an alternate design by Karim Rashid. Now, HAP Investments is moving forward with a two-building development designed by DXA Architects, which was first revealed by Curbed NY. The entire complex will measure 290,000 square feet, although filings have only been submitted for the building at 215-219 West 28th Street (and it will also cantilever over the existing tenement buildings at 213 and 221 West 28th Street). Filings detail a 183,293-square-foot building with 112 residential units and 8,202 square feet of ground-floor retail space. The other building, to rise at 223-227 West 28th Street, is not filed yet, but should measure around 100,000 square feet.
A building most people think is part of Rockefeller Center will not be growing in the middle just yet. On Tuesday, the Landmarks Preservation Commission did not approve an application to expand two floors of individual landmark 75 Rockefeller Plaza.
