NEW YORK | 430 East 58th Street (Sutton 58) | 844 FT | 67 FLOORS

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Sutton Place Supertall Has a New Problem: a Holdout Tenant
http://m.ny.curbed.com/archives/2015...out_tenant.php

Residents are giving Bauhouse Group a run for their money, literally, when it comes to the 900-foot-tall tower the developer wants to erect on East 58th Street. According to the Times, Bauhouse is coming up against a few stubborn tenants in the process of buyouts as they seek to purchase more lots surrounding the site of their planned tower. Although Bauhouse has acquired all of the development rights and property required to erect the building, the developer is now trying to snatch up surrounding buildings to create a bigger base for the structure—and maybe even build taller. But it all isn't going so well. An 81-year-old tenant in one of those buildings along 58th Street between First Avenue and Sutton Place has refused all of Bauhouse's offers, which include an apartment elsewhere in the neighborhood rent free for the rest of his life, moving expenses, and $1 million (although tenant Herndon Werth denies this.) "I told them," Werth recaps to the Times, "I ain't going nowhere."

Meanwhile, as Werth stubbornly refuses to uproot from his home of over 40 years, area locals are arranging against the tower. Residents of 16 co-op and condo buildings in the area have formed an alliance to try to stop the development, and are inquiring about rezoning the area before Bauhouse gets construction permits. "This is about preserving our residential neighborhoods and the light and air for the people who live there," Councilman Ben Kallos told the Times, "The community is finally fighting back against superscrapers."

Bauhouse might not be able to swing the project without a financial partner. Its principle, Jospeh Beninati, told the Times that if a joint venture partner doesn't sign on the dotted line, he'll have to sell the project.