Let the light in. The design scheme for Ian Schrager's condo conversion of the Gramercy Park Hotel smartly opens up the old cramped sash windows with large single panes of glass, offering dramatic views of the famous private park. The hotel is actually two buildings, one at the corner of the park and Lexington Avenue, the other to the west facing Gramercy Park North. It is the latter structure out of which just 23 apartments are currently being created. Schrager has chosen London-based minimalist John Pawson to design the spaces, an architect with such a light touch that his work could be described not so much as spare as vacant. Don't plan on moving in with lots of stuff--a toothbrush could look out of place here. By choosing to simply alter the glazing pattern rather than re-skin the entire building, Schrager has kept his project nicely muted. After all, this is one of the most loved corners of New York and the only way to survive here is to get along with the prickly (and litigious) neighbors. In the past the hotel's guests would have to take turns visiting the park because the doorman only had one key. We wonder if that arrangement will work in this new condo regime. The prospect of litigation with the park's trustees is always just one cease-and-desist order away. View renderings of Pawson's interiors and the unit layouts at the just-launched website for the project linked below.
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Enrique Norten's Manhattan
A 12-story residential glass tower will rise out of the center of a 19th century TriBeCa structure in a project designed by noted Mexican architect Enrique Norten. His firm Ten Arquitectos has been busy in New York lately. The design was praised by Times critic Nicolai Ouroussoff as "richly articulated" and "as intricate as lace." The condominiums will be created out of a largely nondescript structure at the intersections of Canal Street, Sixth Avenue, and Laight Street. The address will be One York Street. Amenities will include a 47-car garage.
255 Hudson
From those wonderful folks who brought you 505 Greenwich comes sister condo 255 Hudson, located just around the corner in the so-called Hudson Square neighborhood. We've long enjoyed the isolated mood of these blocks--they have yet to be colonized by the kind of retail scene you see in SoHo and, increasingly, TriBeCa. If a residential enclave or "condo island" develops here without the heavy foot traffic of other trendy spots, it could turn out to be a real advantage. Cut off by Canal Street to the south and Varick to the east, the area might develop without becoming just another shopping destination for people who don't live there. Whether or not this sense can be preserved is unknown. What caught our eye in the rendering of 255 Hudson was what appears to be some kind of street-level decorative element. The marketing website calls it a "zinc light sculpture," and it would seem to preclude any loud retail storefront. We're all for that. You can find a full image of the building at the link below, where the description promises solid core doors with Valli & Valli hardware not unlike these gorgeous pieces we wrote about here.
3 Bdrm 3 Bth plus Lawn
We wrote about the sleek new condo going up at 255 Hudson (just north of TriBeCa) here. What we did not have until now were renderings of the rear yard where three ground floor duplex units will have garden terraces and their very own private lawns. Sure you can handle the mortgage, but do you have the green thumb to handle a 58' X 23' back yard? With the master suite on the upper level, you can look down on your very own piece of terra firma while still enjoying all the amenities of a full service condominium. Click below to view the rendering and a floor plan.
Warhol Factory Condos
Andy Warhol predicted everyone would be famous for fifteen minutes. Were he alive today he might want to amend that to everyone will own a condo for fifteen minutes...before flipping it. Now comes word that Andy's legendary 33rd Street Factory has been bought by a developer with plans to turn the quirky midtown Manhattan building into luxury condominium lofts. Click below for details and to view photos of the Factory as it stands today.
Update: Lofts at 158 Madison
We wrote about the fate of Andy Warhol's 33rd Street Factory some time ago here. The former Con-Ed substation had sat vacant for at least 10 years. The three-sided T-shape of the lot seems to have puzzled developers until recently. Joseph Sitt and Andrew Heiberger are now transforming the idle site into 50 luxury lofts marketed as the Sundari Lofts & Tower. Ismael Leyva Architects has designed thin glass towers to fill in the site's three sides, using a zen garden with waterfall as a central axis point. Many units will have balconies or outdoor space, and a 58-foot lap pool will be among the amenities. What's interesting to us is how the property is being filled-in from three different directions: a sliver on Madison Avenue, a shorter loft building on 33rd Street, and another sliver on 32nd Street. You can rotate a sectional diagram of the project at the Sundari web site. Below the fold is a rendering of the garden and a diagram of the property-line orientation.
New Lofts Multiply
Not everything has to be white...Two new condo developments rising in lower Manhattan strike a nice counterpoint to the whiteness of Richard Meier's West Street towers by combining a dark palette with clear glass. At the western edge of SoHo (in a cluster of new projects that is proving something of a laboratory of condo-cool) 302 Spring Street (above left) is already close to topping out its eleven stories at the corner of Spring and Renwick. Architects Zakrzewski + Hyde carved a private courtyard and entrance out of a void off the Renwick Street side, and chose black brick as the masonry element. At 163 West 18th Street in Chelsea (right), a site now being cleared, Karl Fischer Architect has also opted for a dark palette in this 34 unit glass and gray metal condo. Thanks to the one-story Con Ed substation next door, apartments will have western exposures. This town has enough white and red brick, so count us as fans of these bolder strokes of black and charcoal gray (when skillfully combined with clear glass, of course). View additional images at the web sites linked below.
Richard Meier on Miami Beach
Just as every city across the globe seems destined to have a Starbucks and a Gap, so it seems every city with global ambitions must eventually get its titanium-clad Frank Gehry civic structure, and its white glassy Richard Meier edifice. Now Miami is about to score its very own Meier tower--an ocean-front condominium called Beach House. Cars will turn off of Collins Avenue into a driveway flanked by tall hedges and sweep into a porte cochere drop off area leading to a three-story lobby. A glass wind screen will wrap a roof-top deck and pool. In this case, Meier has brought many of the elements he employed in his Charles Street tower in the West Village--the glass balconies, the white metal panels, the unending floor-to-ceiling windows. To us, this dedication to such a narrow set of materials and extremely limited palette seems a bit slavish. But, alas, it was E.B. White who advised elegant variation and not Le Corbusier. The shape of the lot and the local zoning have forced a thick, squat tower rather than the tall skinny form devotees of modern glass are usually accustomed to. South Florida sunlight can be awfully harsh. Our advice: make sure the glass is UV protected so your Warhol silkscreens don't fade.
House & Garden on Trendy Condos
House & Garden's design editor Mayer Rus takes brief notice of what he calls "the imperfect union of brand-name architecture and real estate development in New York City" in his column in the July issue. Although Rus is glad developers "have awakened to the marketing potential of good design" he is no fan of the Astor Place "Sculpture for Living" by Gwathmey Siegel, calling it an "awkward assemblage." You can read the entire column here. Meanwhile, get ready for Messrs Gwathmey and Siegel to repeat themselves at two high-profile Manhattan sites now in the works--both with condominiums on the drawing board: the contentious Superior Ink factory on West Street in the far West Village, and a parking lot in SoHo opposite the SoHo Grand Hotel on West Broadway.
Condo Entourage
The Wall Street Journal recently reported that Spidey star Tobey Maguire has now followed pal Leonardo DiCaprio in acquiring a cool Sin City crash pad. Both actors have purchased apartments in the new condominium called Panorama, one of many residential projects filling lots near the Strip. So, you ask, just what does Young Hollywood see in this particular apartment complex? To help answer this riddle we go inside to give you a closer look.
TriBeCa Triangle Lofts
A long abandoned triangular property bounded by Canal, Watts, and Greenwich Streets could soon be transformed into a seven story condominium to be known as 475 Greenwich. The project, which required and received a zoning variance to allow residential units, will have 21 apartments and ground-level retail space. Greenberg Farrow Architects designed the rare freestanding structure. The western stretch of Canal is slowly being refinished piece by piece. The newly rebuilt Canal Park at West Street was recently opened, and another pocket park is to be created on the vacant strip of land to the east bound by Varick, Canal, and Laight Streets. The city may need to erect new signs for Canal Street truckers: Caution Real Estate Brokers Crossing.
Jean Nouvel in SoHo
Andre Balazs has been one busy bee. With a new hotel in the works for the Meatpacking District, and following closely on the heels of his Kenmare Square condominium, ground was recently broken on a new residential project in Manhattan's SoHo district. Paris-based architect Jean Nouvel has designed a 13 story structure containing 41 luxury lofts, a spa, pool, and retail space at street level. Located on Grand Street between Mercer and Broadway, the approval process was a long drawn-out affair. Nouvel's original design was presented some five years ago. Although the curtain wall is thoroughly modernist, the Landmarks commission's contextual concerns were addressed chiefly through the massing of the 5-story base, as well as the spacing of the floors and large windows to match the scale of nearby cast iron factory floors. Sales at 40 Mercer are slated to begin in June. The lofts should be ready for occupancy in about a year. Click below to view three renderings from Atelier Jean Nouvel.
