NEW YORK | 250 E. 57th ST | 715 FT / 218 M | 59 FLOORS

[scalziand]

from SSC

Originally Posted by nygirl

It looks really good from this angle.

[Hoodrat]

That's hella sexy

[NYC4Life]

Update: No sign of construction yet, High School building still stands.

Photos By: antinimby - Wired New York

[NYC4Life]

The Architect's Newspaper

11.07.2008

Fair Trade

Cash-strapped city gets developer to rebuild two Midtown schools


The rebuilt High School of Art and Design will sit within SOM's one-million-square-foot, mixed-use complex.
Courtesy SOM

Even in flush times, the New York City public school system has capital needs that far outstrip its budgets, and so for several years now, the School Construction Authority has been looking at its biggest asset: the 1.5 acres of land under the schools themselves. At 250 East 57th Street, on a site that used to hold P.S. 59 and the venerable High School of Art and Design, work has begun on the first phase of a one-million-square-foot complex that will house the rebuilt schools, as well as housing and retail. Roger Duffy, the lead architect at Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, explained the logic of the idea: “A lot of school sites in New York remain underdeveloped in terms of FAR (floor-area ratio).”

In exchange for the right to create a lucrative mixed-use development on the block-through parcel, developer World Wide Holdings negotiated a deal with the State Board of Education to rebuild and enlarge both schools on the site. In addition to lease payments, a PILOT (Payment In Lieu Of Tax) scheme will contribute additional funds to other education programs across the city.

Construction will occur in two phases, with the retail levels and a significantly enlarged P.S. 59 emerging first. A 59-story residential tower and new High School of Art and Design will follow in an estimated four years.

One of the more appealing features of the design is the large Astroturf play area on top of the building’s retail plinth. There are six outdoor terraces, each catering to a different age group—which are unusually generous outdoor provisions for a public school in Manhattan. The second phase will see the rise of a concertina-like 59-story glazed tower, housing 320 apartments and condos; 20 percent of the units will be affordable, with another 30 affordable units built off-site.

This type of partnership has been growing more common in recent years and is not without its critics, but in a time of chronic budget shortfalls, Duffy sees it as an avenue worth exploring. “The involvement of private developers needs to be composed in an intelligent way to create leverage [for the school system],” he said. “But there is also a need to bring the public and private sectors together.”


The project's first phase will include an enlarged P.S. 59.
All images courtesy SOM


Generous outdoor terraces are designed to serve different age groups of students.



Copyright © 2003-2008 | The Architect's Newspaper, LLC.

[NYguy]

http://www.observer.com/2009/real-es...skyscraper-air

57th Street Skyscraper Up in the Air



By Dana Rubinstein
September 15, 2009

A developer’s vision for a stunning, hourglass-shaped skyscraper at the corner of 57th Street and Second Avenue is moving forward, albeit in an ill-defined form.

The city’s Educational Construction Fund, which is working with luxury residential developer World-Wide Group on the project, filed plans with the Department of Buildings on Sept. 10 for the project’s first phase: an 11-story building, containing 240,549 square feet for the two public schools originally located at the development site (P.S. 59 and the High School of Art & Design) and nearly 40,000 square feet of retail space.

Phase one is itself an amended version of the original plan, which called for the first phase to include 70,000 square feet of retail space. A spokesman for the developer acknowledged that the reduction is an adjustment to new economic realities.

Phase two remains largely in flux. The original plans, first unveiled at the close of 2006, call for a 59-story residential skyscraper to rise on the site. Both the scraper’s height and its composition are now up in the air.

“In terms of rentals or condos, it is too soon to commit one way or the other,” wrote World-Wide spokesman Lee Silberstein in an email. “This goes for the size, and therefore number of units.”

THE PROJECT IS a complicated public-private partnership that harks back to a more optimistic time.

When first announced in late 2006, The New York Sun reported that World-Wide would lease the 1.5-acre site from the City of New York for 75 years. The city would allow World-Wide to relocate P.S. 59 to a new school, to be funded and built by the developer. Then, World-Wide would demolish P.S. 59’s old digs and build a new school building in its place, adjacent to the high school. Once that building was complete, the high school would relocate next door, and its original building would be demolished. Then construction would begin on the residential portion of the project.

Essentially, the Department of Education would have emerged from the process with three new developer-funded school buildings, along with $325 million in rent over the course of the 75-year lease. For its part, the developer would be allowed to build a magnificent, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill–designed skyscraper in what was then a booming residential real estate market. Even better, the state would issue $130 million in tax-free bonds to help finance the schools' construction.

At first, construction moved forward according to plan. In August 2008, retail brokerage Robert K. Futterman & Associates announced that Whole Foods would anchor the project’s retail, opening an outlet there in 2012. By the end of 2008, World-Wide had finished construction of the temporary 63rd Street school for P.S. 59, the city’s first green school building. Industry trade New York Construction reported in October 2008 that construction on the new schools at the development site was to begin that fall. Nearly a year later, construction has yet to begin.

“The temporary site of PS 59 has opened and the school relocated; the rest of the timeline is being finalized,” Mr. Silberstein wrote.

The project’s future remains somewhat murky, but Education Fund executive director Jamie Smarr expressed confidence that the state would still issue bonds to finance construction, and the project would still be completed largely as planned. “The developer is still very much involved as this is [a] public-private venture,” Mr. Smarr said in an email.

“We are moving forward with the planning of this project and, other than some redesign, it remains the same as previously announced.”

[NYC4Life]

Another tower in Northern Midtown whose height is in question yet again. Hopefully, this tower won't be butchered like it's neighbor the Tower Verre.

[Zapatan]

Lol if 715 is too tall for people than New York really is coming to the end of it's skyscraper era.


Sad stuff Also kinda makes me want to get a job in the NYC city council when I graduate college to put in a voice of reason over all the doucheclowns we currently have.

[NYguy]

Originally Posted by NYC4Life

Another tower in Northern Midtown whose height is in question yet again. Hopefully, this tower won't be butchered like it's neighbor the Tower Verre.

It's only in question because of the market right now, but the tower is really planned for too far in the future to predict one way or another. I wouldn't worry about it at this point...

Phase two remains largely in flux. The original plans, first unveiled at the close of 2006, call for a 59-story residential skyscraper to rise on the site. Both the scraper’s height and its composition are now up in the air.

“In terms of rentals or condos, it is too soon to commit one way or the other,” wrote World-Wide spokesman Lee Silberstein in an email. “This goes for the size, and therefore number of units.”

[ZZ-II]

great news

[NYguy]

http://curbed.com/archives/2009/12/2...e_internet.php

Dramatic 57th Street Tower Springs to Life (On the Internet)



December 22, 2009, by Joey

Big things are happening at the corner of Second Avenue and 57th Street, but how big remains to be seen. We're talking about 250 East 57th Street, the World-Wide Group's plan to replace a school building with a new school, a Whole Foods, more retail and, oh yeah, a 59-story residential tower designed by SOM that tapers and widens as it pierces the East Side sky.

Back in September it was reported that the tower is on hold while Phase I—the school and the retail in an 11-story base—proceeds. That still appears to be the plan, and a tipster points out that a slew of new permits related to the demolition of the current building at the site have recently been issued. Even if the SOM tower (it really needs a fun new nickname, btw) doesn't rise, we can still enjoy the renderings posted on the website launched to market the building's retail spaces. They're in the gallery above, and they're really making us crave some organic goji berries.

[Dac150]

Nice renderings of what could’ve been a nice tower; it’s not to say though that down the line something won’t sprout up from the base / podium. The retail for now is better than nothing.

[NYguy]

Originally Posted by Dac150

Nice renderings of what could’ve been a nice tower; it’s not to say though that down the line something won’t sprout up from the base / podium. The retail for now is better than nothing.

They are still building the tower, there will just be a revision to the design.

[Zapatan]

hopefully the revision is as cool as the current, I really like this tower

[NYguy]

Posted today on curbed.com.....

MIDTOWN EAST—A tipster follows up yesterday's update on the maybe/maybe-not 250 East 57th Street with this tidbit: "I live next door to the site (one of my walls is adjoining the school slated for demolition) and last week workers from the construction company came in to take pictures of my apartment (to make sure I can't wrongfully sue for any damages incurred during demolition, of course!). They said that demolition of the elementary school should be starting in the next few weeks."

[FerrariEnzo]

http://afinecompany.blogspot.com/201...of-future.html
Demolition Begins At Site Of Future Whole Foods, Schools, And Tower At 250 East 57th


It has begun, finally! The public/private venture of RFK (Robert K. Futterman) at 57th Street and Second Avenue is underway in earnest! I took this shot a few days back and the former elementary school at the site is quickly vanishing. What goes in it's place? Two new schools, retail including Whole Foods, and eventually a 59 story residential tower (nothing definitive on condo vs. rental and in fact if and when that part will ever happen- that's phase 2). One thing we do know is that the elementary school, P.S. 59 is scheduled to open in September 2012. We also know that the High School of Art and Design will occupy the space as well. The benefit here is that the elementary school will triple in size, the high school will grow 40% and the building on East 63rd Street where P.S. 59 is now squatting will become P.S. 267 to alleviate crowding in other Upper East Side schools when the new P.S. 59 is finished. Got all that? As for Whole Foods? It looks pretty solid at this point, at least if you take the 250 East 57th Street website at face value.
Posted by Andrew Fine at 11:39 AM

[FerrariEnzo]

Bigger version of picture posted above:

[NYguy]

I don't know if that's the redesign (its' still the same height) or just the rendering, but I still like it.

[JayPro]

If it is the update, I should like to see a few different perspectives.

This rendering doesn't seem to do enough to showcase the overall dimensions...

...but as long as it isn't a box. Trump and Bloomberg need a yang to counterbalance their yins...if that makes sense.

[NYguy]

Comparing the two, my eyes don't deceive me...it's almost as if the tower were turned upside down.

[NYguy]

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/busines...rHOE5aOKSM7irO

Water splashes on World Wide

By STEVE CUOZZO
April 20, 2010

Marketing began today on $53 million in city-backed bonds to help finance construction of new public schools at World Wide Group's mixed-use project at Second Avenue between East 56th and 57th Streets -- just as local businesses and residents warned that a proposed city water-main project astride the site will create a "war zone."

The debt offering, reported by The Bond Buyer yesterday, is through the New York City Education Construction Fund, an agency controlled by the mayor's office. The ECF and developer World Wide are in a "partnership" on the project, which will ultimately include a 350-unit luxury apartment tower, two new schools and retail space including a giant Whole Foods.

But the neighborhood's on edge over the Department of Environmental Protection's announcement that it might build a secondary water main under East 56th Street from Sutton Place to Third Avenue.

The DEP told us that no decision has been made yet where to build the water main -- and no work would begin until late 2013 at the earliest.

Even so, local landlords, shop owners and restaurateurs are in a tizzy, aware of the mess that the Wall Street Area Water Main project has made of downtown streets.

A letter to the DEP urging that the uptown job be relocated was signed by City Councilwoman Jessica Lappin, Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer, US Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-Manhattan) and State Sen. Liz Krueger.

Co-op apartment owners at 209 E. 56th St. got a letter from their board warning that it would disrupt businesses and endanger pedestrians. It said the block between Second and Third avenues, where work will start soon on Whole Foods, "will be like a war zone."

World Wide already has demolished PS 59 and the High School of Art and Design will come down as well. The developer has built a temporary home for both schools on East 63rd Street; they'll later return to new facilities at the Second Avenue site.

A spokesman for World Wide had no comment on how the water main job might impact its project.

Calls to Jamie Smarr, executive director of the ECF, were not returned.