Posted Oct 20, 2015, 1:58 PM
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NYC/NJ/Miami-Dade
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Join Date: Jul 2013
Location: Riverview Estates Fairway (PA)
Posts: 45,828
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Site will hit the market.
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Silverstein does about-face on mega-tall West Side residential tower
Quote:
Silverstein Properties is backing away from a large West Side development, where it had hoped to raise the tallest residential tower in the city—a spire that would soar over 1,100 feet and include more than 1,400 units of luxury housing and 300,000 square feet of retail space.The company, developer of the World Trade Center, hired CBRE to sell the property, a former Mercedes dealership it acquired earlier this year for about $100 million.
'Not the right time'
“With everything we have going on at the World Trade Center and elsewhere, this just isn’t the right time for us to develop this project,” a Silverstein spokesman said in a statement.
A City Hall spokesman, however, suggested that there had also been difficult negotiations in recent months over how many units of affordable housing Silverstein would have to include in the mega-tower. The developer had initially offered to build fewer affordable apartments than the city required.
“This project would be held to the same mandatory affordable-housing require-ment as every city-backed or private rezoning,” the spokesman said in a statement.
The company, founded by Larry Silverstein (pictured), planned to build about 1.8 million square feet of space on the site. Located at 514 11th Ave., it takes up the full block between West 40th and West 41st streets, and runs from 11th Avenue to a midblock on-ramp to the Lincoln Tunnel.
Because the property is within the Hudson Yards—a predominantly commercial neighborhood—about 1.2 million square feet of the tower was required to be office space.
The developer recently sought allowances from the city to convert the bulk of that office requirement into residential units, insisting that the site was better connected to Hell’s Kitchen, a neighborhood composed of apartment buildings. Just west of the property is Silver Towers, two residential skyscrapers that hold about 1,300 rental units, which Silverstein finished building in recent years.
To receive an allowance from the city to build more residential units, Silverstein initially offered to reserve at least 250,000 square feet for affordable housing. But that figure fell short of the 375,000 square feet the city sought.Spokesmen for both the city and Silverstein said that the two parties eventually agreed that 375,000 square feet of affordable units would be included in the project.
Possible repercussions
“This is a very complex project, and it’s not clear that affordable housing is actually the sticking point,” the city stated.
The deal’s collapse could dampen enthusiasm among other big builders who face affordable-housing quotas in exchange for the right to build residential high-rises on pricey parcels. Silverstein hopes that’s not the case. The company is positioned to profit substantially from a sale at a time when development properties have reached record values. The company believes 514 11th Ave. could fetch up to $500 now.
Sources said the sale will allow Silverstein to focus on other large projects in its pipeline. The developer is in the process of building 3 World Trade Center, a 2.5 million-square-foot office tower that will be anchored by GroupM. Silverstein is also trying to finalize a deal to build 2 World Trade Center, a 2.8 million-square-foot tower designed by star architect Bjarke Ingels and anchored by 21st Century Fox and News Corp.
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http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article...idential-tower
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