Posted Aug 20, 2013, 3:33 AM
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New Yorker for life
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Join Date: Jul 2001
Location: Borough of Jersey
Posts: 51,900
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http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/20/ny...anted=all&_r=0
Prime Lot, Empty for Years (Yes, This Is Manhattan)
This 6.4-acre tract in Midtown Manhattan at the East River has sat dormant since 2007, a year before a $4 billion project was approved.
Now, the time to begin work is running out.
By CHARLES V. BAGLI
August 19, 2013
Quote:
This hole in the ground is the length of three city blocks. It is a carpet of sand, weeds and prairie grass sloping down to the river, interrupted only by a low ridge of broken bedrock. Around it, a black chain-link fence catches the plastic cups, paper and other debris that roll along like tumbleweeds. But this 6.4-acre parcel is not sitting in the middle of a decaying rust-belt city. It is nestled in the middle of Manhattan, between 38th and 41st Streets on First Avenue, overlooking the East River, amid a residential real estate boom. Yet it has sat fallow for six years, long enough for young trees to rise at the edges of the property.
How one of the most valuable undeveloped pieces of earth has sat empty for years — even after New York City approved a $4 billion project there in 2008 — is a mysterious and confusing tale of ambition, infighting, clashing personalities and bad timing. At its heart is Sheldon H. Solow, an irascible but talented billionaire developer who is an intermittent presence in his office on 57th Street after a career that reaches back more than a half century.
“This lot seems to be a prime candidate for development in the current market,” said Ross Moskowitz, a real estate partner at Stroock & Stroock & Lavan, who is not involved with the Solow site. “With interest rates still very attractive and the capital markets looking for product, there appears to be unlimited appetite and demand for residential housing in New York.”
Mr. Solow is not talking. Nor is his son Stefan, 38, who appears at the office, but not often at the same time as his father. “I can’t tell you anything,” said a family adviser, Thomas D. Thacher III.
Mr. Solow, 85, does not have much time to make his move. He must build the foundation for the office building or one of several apartment towers by November, or risk losing his permits and public approvals.
.....Mr. Solow, who has rarely if ever sold a property or an artwork in his vast holdings, did both this year. In February, he closed on the $172.5 million sale of a two-acre parcel on First Avenue between 35th and 36th Streets, part of the Con Ed property, to Michael Stern at JDS Development, who has already broken ground on a pair of residential buildings on the site.
According to executives who know Mr. Solow, he reconvened his development team about three months ago, eager to begin work on the hole in the ground, to demonstrate that he was serious and to capitalize on a surging market. But the group has not met again.
“He bought the land cheap,” said Edward Rubin, an architect and a former member of Community Board 6. “The rental market is really hot. Why it’s still a hole in the ground, I don’t know.”
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