NEW YORK | 432 Park Avenue (Drake Hotel dev.) | (1,396) FT / 432 M | 89 FLOORS

[NYguy]

Originally Posted by Busy Bee

The Cube sucks less than the exposed ugly wall on 450 Park left behind from the Drake.

I wonder if the owners of 450 plan on restoring windows to the former lot line wall?

There's a lot of money tied into that building. Who knows. The cube itself looks like it would have been a nice crown for the tower.

[RobEss]

Originally Posted by Busy Bee

I wonder if the owners of 450 plan on restoring windows to the former lot line wall?

Unlikely, since the wall and adjacent spaces were never designed to house windows. What I'd like to see is that oblong 'lozenge' shape stamped onto a flat concrete facade, for visual continuity.

[Busy Bee]

Well any solution like that would basically be a solid metal curtain wall bolted to the concrete wall. That would look good even without windows.

[NYguy]

Vinoly still dislikes One57 (and is not too fond of 432 Park)....


http://nypost.com/2016/05/08/archite...ica-is-flawed/


Developer says ‘penis envy’ is fueling city’s tower obsession


By Jennifer Gould Keil
May 8, 2016

It’s one of the most exclusive new buildings in Manhattan and the tallest residential skyscraper in the Western Hemisphere — and its biggest critic is its own architect.

Rafael Viñoly says 432 Park Avenue — where an 88th-floor penthouse is currently on the market for $76.5 million — is flawed.

“It has a couple of screw-ups,” the Uruguayan-born New York architect said during a talk hosted by the Douglas Elliman brokerage inside the building last week.

Speaking to The Post afterward, he added, “The first has to do with the windows.”

The 96-story, 1,396 foot tower at Park Avenue and East 57th Street has six 10 by 10 foot windows on every side of every floor. But on the inside, the windows are thickly framed, awkwardly sucking up interior space.

“That was Harry’s idea,” Viñoly, 71, said, referring to the developer, Harry Macklowe.

Macklowe bought the historic Drake Hotel for $440 million in 2006 and tore it down a year later to make way for the skyscraper.

Stalled by the 2008 economic crisis, construction began in 2012. Two tenants have already moved in.

Viñoly and Macklowe are friends. Yet Viñoly reportedly once described Macklowe as “a truck driver with an education in aesthetics.”

And Macklowe has said there is an amount of “penis envy” driving the city’s new crop of supertall towers.

A source familiar with the tower’s construction confirmed that the window framing was Macklowe’s idea.

“Harry wanted the windows framed in,” the source said. “But it takes up space. His idea was that the windows showcase picture-perfect views of Central Park, and Harry wanted all the windows framed and recessed.”

Many people who have bought at the building have already removed the frames.

“I’m taking mine out,” the insider said. “It’s a personal choice. But this is a design flaw, not a structural flaw.”

The second flaw, according to Viñoly, is “the interior design and layout.”

432 Park’s interiors were handled by Deborah Berke Partners. Its founder, Deborah Berke, is the new dean at the Yale School of Architecture.

For example, Viñoly said he objects to where the bathrooms are located, at the front of the units in many cases.

Viñoly didn’t just diss his own building at the Elliman Talks event. He had harsh words for Pritzker Prize-winning architect Christian de Portzamparc, who designed One57, at 157 W. 57th St., which has been called New York’s first “billionaires’ building.”

“What is the name of that building by that French guy? It would have been better without all that glass. I think it is an absolutely horrendous building,” Viñoly said.

432 Park has been criticized as a temple to “the 1 percent” that blocks sunlight and casts a shadow on Central Park.

But Viñoly called it a testament to the city’s “verticality.”

Macklowe has compared it a work of art.

“It’s almost like the Mona Lisa,” he once said. “Except instead of it looking at you, you’re looking at it wherever you are. You can’t escape it.”

Photo: Paul Martinka

[forj]

they framed the inside of the windows? this is news to me. do we have any interior or up close exterior shots showing what that looks like? What a dumb idea.

[NYguy]

http://therealdeal.com/2016/05/11/43...m-finds-buyer/

432 Park penthouse asking $76.5M finds buyer
Identity of purchaser at PH88 still unclear





May 11, 2016
By Katherine Clarke

A penthouse at 432 Park Avenue that was asking $76.5 million is now in contract, The Real Deal has learned, in a deal that is likely to give developers of ultra-pricey product a pick-me-up.

The five-bedroom, seven-bathroom, 8,055-square-foot aerie, PH 88, is being purchased by a mystery buyer. A spokesperson for the developers, Macklowe Properties and CIM Group, declined to comment on the final contract price or on the identity of the buyer.

The price for the unit – which was first listed in May of 2014, according to StreetEasy – amounts to an astonishing $9,497 per square foot.

Other buyers at the building include Douglas Elliman chair Howard Lorber and his business partner Bennett LeBow of the Vector Group, Elliman’s parent company. LeBow paid $45 million, or more than $5,562 per foot, for his condo — a combination of two half-floor pads on the 64th floor. Lorber shelled out just over $15 million, or $3,750 per foot, for his half-floor apartment on the 67th floor.

PH 88 was one of the last — if not the last — full-floor condos for sale at 432 Park, not including units combined by individual buyers. Saudi retail magnate Fawaz Al Hokair is reportedly paying $95 million, or $11,300 per foot, for the loftiest perch at 432 Park. The 8,255-square-foot penthouse went into contract in 2013, and hasn’t yet closed.

This fall, CIM and Macklowe divided some of the full-floor units at the top of the building into smaller units in a bid to attract a wider pool of buyers. The building’s 91st through 95th floors now have two units, one measuring 4,400 square feet and 3,600 square feet. Instead of $50-million-plus, they’re asking $40.25 million and $39.75 million, respectively.

A Macklowe spokesperson said sales velocity has been up at the property over the last several months. In November, Elliman was brought in as the in-house agent for the property, which is about 75 percent sold. The brokerage previously had a co-exclusive on the building but sales were primarily managed in house by Macklowe.

[tokilamockingbrd]

I think buyers are a waiting pattern. With all the options coming online there is no rush to not miss out.

If I am buying a property I actually plan to live in I want to see it before I drop cold hard cash on it.

[NYguy]

^ Well, that's part of it. I don't understand why everyone expects these things to sell out over night. This one is at 75%, and even if it slows down to trickle sales (there aren't a huge number of units in these towers), that doesn't mean other towers won't sell. It's all about the product.

[gramsjdg]

Funny, I had figured the penthouse units would be among the first to sell... must have been a huge markup over the units just a few levels down.

[chris08876]

The girls of 432 Park Avenue






Credit: http://www.viktoriamodel.com/category/awards/

[jd3189]

This tower is still u/c? Will it be finished this year?

[ILNY]

Originally Posted by jd3189

This tower is still u/c? Will it be finished this year?

There is no set date. Exterior is completed except the base of the tower where public space with trees still needs to be constructed. Also, the tower already got certificate of occupancy and interior designers are working on individual units for their clients. Work will still be going on for few years (just like One57) but you can consider the structure part to be finished.

[NYguy]

http://vk.com/pavel_gogulan

[FMIII]

This is madly wonderful

[photoLith]

How in the hell did those dudes get up there? And to add, so the top two floors arent inhabited and I guess they have lights in the false windows to make it look like they are used.

[Zapatan]

Those pictures are awesome yet terrifying.

[QUEENSNYMAN]

Now that's a view!!!

[detroitmetro101]

O.m.f.g.

[HighwayStar]

Originally Posted by photoLith

How in the hell did those dudes get up there? And to add, so the top two floors arent inhabited and I guess they have lights in the false windows to make it look like they are used.

It's actually the top SIX floors which are uninhabited... first real Condo is the 7th row of lights from the top.

Will be interesting to see how realistic the "fake" lighting is when all is up and running.

[Busy Bee]

Aside from the spectacle of the this daredevil... I'm more concerned with why the parapet wall concrete appears to be cracking! WTH?