Posted Sep 28, 2012, 9:22 PM
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New Yorker for life
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Join Date: Jul 2001
Location: Borough of Jersey
Posts: 51,919
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http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/30/re...er=rss&emc=rss
One57’s Billionaires, and the Dust-Ups They Cause
By ALEXEI BARRIONUEVO
September 27, 2012
Quote:
AS problems go, this is a pretty good one to have.
Gary Barnett, the developer of One57, is attracting a steady flow of billionaire buyers to his Midtown tower, which upon completion next year will be New York’s tallest building with residences. But Mr. Barnett, the president of the Extell Development Company, is more than a little worried about a possible gripe fest in the tower’s top 15 floors, where the billionaires’ club is forming. Several of the future owners of the high-altitude, full-floor apartments are hiring their own designers to finish their spaces, which could become a big headache for their neighbors, Mr. Barnett said.
“This was a major, major issue for us,” he said. “We don’t want our people who are buying and accepting our finishes to be sitting there for three or four years while tons of construction goes on in the building and people build out their spaces. It ties up elevators and creates dust and noise. We are doing everything possible to avoid that.” Buyers of the two duplex penthouses, and a number of the other purchasers of the seven full-floors that have been sold so far (out of a total of 11), are planning to finish their spaces themselves, Mr. Barnett said.
Mr. Barnett said that most buyers below the top 15 floors so far want the Extell finishes by the Danish designer Thomas Juul-Hansen, rather than to finish the spaces themselves. But up in the billionaires’ club, there is sure to be some commotion. To head off any grumbling, Mr. Barnett said he struck agreements with the full-floor purchasers that would allow Extell to do a lot of the “heavy work” — like stones, plasterboard and studs — while finishing the building. Extell is trying to accelerate construction so that the lower-floor residents can move in by the summer of 2013 and the owners on the upper floors can start moving in by the end of that year.
The developer has taken a hard line with some potential buyers. Mr. Barnett said he passed up one full-floor sale after protracted discussions with the prospective buyer about his plans to finish the space. “The guy wanted to do his own stuff and wouldn’t let us do what we were going to do,” Mr. Barnett said. “I said, ‘Forget it, I don’t want to go through with this.’ ”
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