685 Fifth Avenue

Redesigned Retail Space, Five-Story Office Expansion for 20-Story Commercial Building at 685 Fifth Avenue, Midtown

10:00 am on April 25, 2016 By Reid Wilson

General Growth Properties and Thor Equities have filed to expand, by five stories, the 20-story, 115,000-square-foot multi-use commercial building at 685 Fifth Avenue, located on the corner of East 54th Street, in Midtown. The property’s commercial square footage – 109,543 square feet – will remain the same, because a portion of the space on the lower levels will be utilized to build the vertical expansion. As a result, the structure will see an increase in height from 227 feet to 292 feet. Coach has already secured a lease to take 23,400 square feet of retail space on the first few floors for its new flagship store, The Real Deal reports. Midtown South-based Marin Architects is the architect of record. In June of 2014, GGP and Thor acquired the building for $460 million, and it was reported last November that Michael Shvo is in contract to acquire the building’s existing 90,000 square feet of office space for north of $100 million. It doesn’t appear the future office space on floors 21 through 25 was part of the deal with Shvo.

9701 Third Avenue, image via Google Maps

Permits Filed: 9701 Third Avenue, Bay Ridge

7:00 am on April 25, 2016 By Rebecca Baird-Remba

New construction rarely comes to Bay Ridge, because the zoning is restrictive and development sites in the southern Brooklyn neighborhood are hard to come by. However, one builder managed to snag a site along the neighborhood’s commercial thoroughfare, Third Avenue. New building applications were filed last week for a six-story, mixed-use building at 9701 Third Avenue, on the corner of 97th Street.

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150 Rivington Street

Reveal for Seven-Story, 45-Unit Mixed-Use Project Planned at 150 Rivington Street, Lower East Side

6:30 am on April 25, 2016 By Reid Wilson

Earlier this year, applications were filed to demolish the former Streit’s Matzo Factory to the ground floor. The developer wants to build a seven-story, 45-unit mixed-use building with 10,219 square feet of ground and cellar-level retail space from the remnants, at 148-154 Rivington Street, on the Lower East Side. Renderings of the project have now been revealed by the New York Times, which can also report that apartments will be condominiums with one- and two-bedroom configurations. The amount of retail space has also been increased to 13,000 square feet. Cogswell Lee Development (the development arm of Cogswell Realty) is the developer, and GLUCK+ is behind the design. Demolition of the factory is expected to commence in the coming weeks.