Going big: The Trump International in Chicago. (Wikimedia Commons)

There had been rumors that Gary Barnett had tapped Swiss starchitects and downtown darlings Herzog & de Meuron to design his supertall skyscraper at the corner of 57th Street and Broadway, but now The Journal reports that Adrian Smith is the architect for 225 West 57th Street. The bigger surprise, literally, may be that the 1,550-foot height for the Extell tower, which The Observer previously reported, may just be a starting point.

While the precise height could easily change—Mr. Barnett said plans were very preliminary—the developer is clearly gearing up to build one of the tallest towers in the city, and one that would offer sweeping views of Central Park a block to the north.

Of course, any groundbreaking is still quite a ways off and Extell needs to line up crucial construction financing. But Mr. Barnett said: "It's going to be a tall building."

This wouldn't be the first time Mr. Barnett has jacked up the height of one of his buildings. His One57 tower was listed in building permits as reaching 953 feet with 73 stories, but the finished building tops 1,005 feet with 90 stories.

Whether this could produce a 1,600-foot tower (or taller) remains to be seen, but one thing Mr. Barnett previously told The Observer he will not be pursuing is a spire, a common tactic used to push building heights further into the stratosphere, as is the case at 1 World Trade Center. There, the building is 1,368 feet, matching that of its historic predecessor, while a 408-foot mast pushes the building to the symbolic height of 1,776 feet.

On a side note, Mr. Barnett said it was his partner in the project, Nordstroms—which will anchor the bottom six floors of the tower with its first New York City outpost—that suggest Mr. Smith. A former partner at SOM's Chicago office, the deisnger is best known for the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, the world's tallest tower that reaches some 2,717 feet, more than a mile high. The tower has a spread of apartments on the upper floors that help it lay claim to the world's tallest apartments, as well.

Another of Mr. Smith's prominent commissions is the tallest residential tower in Chicago, and this hemisphere, and the city's second biggest building, the Trump International Hotel and Tower, which reaches 1,389 feet (thanks to spire, of course—the roofline is at 1,170 feet).

And so the fight for the city's tallest apartment tower continues.

Last year, New York by Gehry surpassed another Trump confection, the World Tower near the U.N., by 16 feet. The Bruce Ratner-built building usurped the crown held for a decade with its rippling metal curves stretching 876 feet into the air. When Mr. Barnett's One57 opens next year, it will top 1,005, but CIM and Harry Macklowe's fast-rising 432 Park will be far bigger, in a year or two, even surpassing the Trump Chicago tower, at 1,397 feet, arguably becoming the biggest building in New York. Until Mr. Barnett finishes 225 West 57th Street, of course. Or until something even bigger comes along.

Going up to come down. (Matt Chaban)

The facade of 1780 Broadway will be retained, but that's it. (Matt Chaban)

No sooner did Extell Development file permits for a new 1,550-foot residential tower on the corner of 57th Street and Broadway then scaffolding started to go up around one of the final properties comprising Gary Barnett's little west side assemblage that will be home to the city's tallest tower. On Friday morning, The Observer happened to be out for a stroll on the crosstown boulevard when we noticed construction workers assembling a sidewalk shed, the first sign of construction commencement.

A source close to Extell confirms that demolition will soon begin on 1780 Broadway, a 12-story building that was once home to BF Goodrich. At the time, this corner of Gotham was known as Automobile Row during the Gilded Age. Because of an agreement with the city's Landmarks Preservation Commission, the facade of 1780 Broadway must be retained as part of any new building, so this will presumably be a careful deconstruction.

It is worth noting that, according to construction documents, the hotel will occupy floors seven through 12, the same height as 1780 Broadway, so it could make a good entrance for the hotel, while the Nordstrom would presumably have its entrance on busy 57th Street, with something quieter for the apartment tenants on 58th Street.

Inside the old, trashed Morton Williams (Matt Chaban)

The building at 225 West 57th Street was also part of the BF Goodrich complex, but the eight-story building was not given protections by the landmarks commission. The only thing holding up its demolition, which is also just beginning, was a Morton Williams grocery store in the ground floor and basement. Construction netting and scaffolding has been up on the building for months, but until a new Morton Williams opened a block down 57th Street, this one stayed open. Currently, the space is half empty, with ripped ceilings and empty cold cases strewn about the space.

Neighboring 117 West 57th Street was torn down last year and has lain dormant.

Is this a sign that this new building might indeed start rising sooner rather than later? "Once a building is torn down, a new one tends to rise," according to our source. "It's quite possible."

That would be an impressive feat, given that One57 is not even finished. Then again, if that building is indeed almost sold out, Mr. Barnett will need something else to start selling to the billionaires of the world, eh? Which begs the question, what could he possibly build next to top these two?

Update:Extell spokesman George Artzt explains that the building is being prepped for future work, but nothing will happen before plans are approved by the city's Landmarks Preservation Commission. "We're not doing anything to the building right now," he said. At the moment, demolition is only underway on 225 West 57th Street.

A hypothetical skyline, with 225 West 57th at right, One57 middle, 432 Park at left. (Curbed/NYO)

1780 Broadway, the one piece that will remain. (City Realty)

If King Kong were to swing into New York sometime this decade, he might actually have a hard time figuring out where to go.

In the original 1933 black-and-white classic, King Kong famously scales the two-year-old Empire State Building, cementing it in the conscience of the world as arguably its most famous skyscraper. Four decades later, the giant gorilla set his sights higher, standing astride the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center. Today, perhaps he might climb atop their succesor, the new 1 World Trade Center. But one gets the sense that King Kong is given to gigantism, so only the city’s tallest tower will do.

Until a few months ago, that would have been 1 World Trade. But since 432 Park Avenue began to rise skyward in April, the 1,397-foot condo tower developed by Harry Macklowe and CIM on the old Drake Hotel site would have claimed the skyline crown. It beats out its downtown rival by 29 feet, so long as one ignores the silly 400-foot sorta spire atop 1 World Trade. Should King Kong arrive sometime in 2014, this slinky tower would probably be his choice.

But a year or two after that, and he might turn his gaze further down 57th Street, past the already striking 1,005-foot One57 tower, Gary Barnett's billionaire bauble nearing completion despite that crane accident. There it would settle on another tower being developed by Mr. Barnett, at 225 West 57th Street, just one block from what was already going to be the city's tallest apartment building when it opens next year. The new tower's height, according to building permits filed last week: 1,550 feet. 

That would make it the world's sixth tallest building—at least until something else comes along and knocks it off its pedestal.

That is a good 50 percent taller than either the Chrysler Building or One57, while all three are about the same size, between 1.2 and 1.4 million square feet. The tower will be slender, but it will also be solid unlike some of its spindly rivals, notably 432 Park and predecessors like the Trump World Tower. (Amazing how that held the record for tallest apartment building for a decade, surpassed by only a few feet by Frank Gehry's Spruce Street tower, and now, it's just off to the races, especially when the 1,050-foot MoMA tower is added into the mix. And never mind all the super-tall office towers on the horizon, like the 1,300-footer at Hudson Yards and all those maybe-taller towers coming out of the Midtown East rezoning.)

The tower will reach 88 stories, which sounds like a lot, but when the overall height is considered, that belies exceedingly high ceilings. At the same time, much extra space will also likely be devoted to mechanical systems to keep such a colossus running, as well as the fact that the first five floors, as construction documents show, will be given over to a Nordstrom, as was announced in July. On the seventh through 12th floors, there will be a hotel, and then, boom, 223 residential units. That is almost twice as many units as One57, though the hotel is also considerably larger there.

"I don't want to confirm anything except to say we've filed permits," Mr. Barnett told The Observer Monday by phone, when asked if the project had financing and was set to rise.

As noted by the eager architecture savants on Skyscraper City and Wired New York, who first noticed the building permits yesterday, construction equipment is already on hand at 217 West 57th Street, one of the lots Mr. Barnett controls and will be building on some day. Similarly, the Morton Williams grocery story at 225 West 57th Street closed last month, paving the way for demolition of that building and its replacement to rise.

This is one of Mr. Barnett's most complicated deals ever, requiring the assemblage of numerous parcels of land and air rights from surrounding buildings and properties, including tax lot mergers and air rights purchases, essentially turning the entire block into a piece of the project, even if some of the buildings thereon will remain standing. "We've been at this seven or eight years," Mr. Barnett said. "We've bought different parcels and air rights, etc, etc, and here we are." Building documents show no fewer than nine different parcels tied up in creating the lot.

Back in the spring, Mr. Barnett told The Observer he was still working on assembling pieces for the project, with the implication that the goal would be to reclaim the title of New York's tallest apartment tower. (The Burj Khalifa in Dubai still boasts the world record, with apartments through the tower's 108th floor.) Previously, it had been speculated that 225 West 57th Street would top out around 1,250 feet, but Mr. Barnett has pushed beyond that to new heights.

"There won't be a spire or anything like that, the floors will go all the way to the top, or almost to the top, with some mechanicals above," Mr. Barnett said. "This is not a gimmick."

On the highest occupiable floor, the 85th, construction documents call for a "residential accessory lounge open to sky." Apartments will be from the 15th through 84th floors, with no mention of layouts (full-floor, duplex, etc.). The building permits also mention another residential lounge on the 14th floor, and the seventh floor houses a number of amenities for the hotel: a restaurant, salon, gym, lounge and "sky lobby." The ground floor has separate entrances for the Nordstrom, the hotel and the residences.

One thing that will not be new is the facade along Broadway, the former BF Goodrich building. Because of a deal struck with the city's Landmarks Preservation Commission in 2009, the old auto building at 225 West 57th can come down, despite the protests of preservationists, but its sibling at 1780 Broadway must remain. A 1920s red brick building, its 12-story facade must be integrated into whatever Mr. Barnett builds. The building will have T-shaped configuration as a result, with section on Broaway, 57th and 58th streets.

What lucky architect gets to design such a multifaceted project? The Observer had heard that Herzog & de Meuron had beat out the likes of Jean Nouvel, Norman Foster and SHoP, but on that count, Mr. Barnett demured. "I'm not going to confirm or deny that, but I wouldn't print that if I were you," he said. The associate architects listed on the construction documents are Adamson Associates, who were the architects of record on all three of Larry Silverstein's World Trade Center towers, Durst's One Bryant Park, the Goldman Sachs headquarters and the still unbuilt MoMA Tower by Mr. Nouvel. So whomever the architect is, it must be a pretty high caliber firm.

Still, Mr. Barnett is taking nothing for granted. When The Observer tried to congratulate him on a new project, and the city's tallest at that, he responded, "Congratulations are only in order when you've finished the building and cashed the last check."

"We're just working hard and hoping the market stays healthy," he added.

No doubt when this project is finally finished some years from now, Mr. Barnett will stand atop it, perhaps out on the residential accessory lounge open to the sky and thumping his chest in triumph. King Kong certainly would.

The new skyline, come 2020? 432 Park is at left, One57 is just right of One Bryant Park, and 225 West 57th Street is just to the right of that, then 15 Penn Plaza and, on the farthest right, Hudson Yards. (sbarn/Skyscraper Page)

The site, from 58th Street. (Skyscraper Page)

One57 looms in the distance—imagine something even taller.

When Gary Barnett builds, he wants everything to be "the best," as the Extell exec made clear in our recent profile. Bigger is not always better, but it certainly does not hurt, especially in Manhattan. That is part of the appeal of Mr. Barnett's One57—not only will the views be dead-center on Central Park, a fact Mr. Barnett keenly brags about, but there are also the bragging rights of having the tallest residential tower in the Western Hemisphere. At 1,005 feet, it beats Frank Gehry's 8 Spruce Street by more than 100 feet.

But this is New York, and the record will never hold for long, as competitors like the MoMA tower and 432 Park start to rise. But Mr. Barnett has an ace up his sleeve just down the block, a large development site on Broadway running between 57th and 58th streets. The lot, site of the former B.F. Goodrich Building is nearly twice as large as One57's, and more importantly the tower could be many hundred feet taller, as well, as Mr. Barnett continues to assemble air rights and properties, one of his favorite parts of the business.

For this stratospheric project he also turned to several top-shelf designers, none of whom Extell has ever worked with before.

As reported in our profile, Swiss starchitects Herzog & de Meuron won an invited competition to design a tower that could rise to 1,250 feet or more:

And, according to sources outside the developer, Mr. Barnett has tapped another Pritzker firm, Herzog & de Meuron, of 40 Bond fame, to build a 1,250-foot residential tower at Broadway and 57th Street. Yes, One57 was not enough. When it stops being the best, this project, and so many others, will be ready to carry on the legacy. When asked about the project, Mr. Barnett did not deny it, though he noted that, “Nothing has been settled, not the height, not the architect.” So be it. Perhaps now that Harry Macklowe’s 432 Park is climbing toward 1,395 feet, maybe Mr. Barnett wants to build a 1,400-foot tower.

What there was not room to say was the rest of the impressive firms under consideration: Herzog & de Meuron beat out fellow European Pritzker winners Norman Foster, Richard Rogers and Jean Nouvel and local favorites SHoP, according to our sources. The tower, as specified in the competition brief called for a multi-story base of offices with residences and a hotel on top, a top-of-the-line mixed use tower.

As Mr. Barnett made clear, any of this could change, but it shows a continued commitment to high-end design at the very least. When asked about how he chooses his designers—without making mention of this project in particular—Mr. Barnett gave some insight into how this little competition might have been put together.

"We like to work with the firms we know, we know they can do the work," Mr. Barnett said walking down 57th Street between the One57 site and the showroom just across Fifth Avenue. "But sometimes we want to give somebody else a chance, we've seen their work and we figure, why not give them a shot."

Mr. Barnett said that quality design "probably pays for itself" but sometimes he does wonder if it is worth it. "I sometimes question our commitment to design," he said. "These architects, the good ones, they can be difficult sometimes, but the product is definitely better. I look at the guys putting up just total crap, and I wonder if they don't make the same return."

Still, Mr. Barnett stressed that since he prefers the creative aspect of development above, or at least in equal measure to, the money, that probably helps explain his continued interest in what his buildings look like. "It's just more interesting this way, and it certainly helps with the marketing," he said.

Not every project warrants a starchitect, though. "We're not going to use them every time, like on an 80/20 project, or some of the hotels, the margins are just too tight, and it doesn't make sense," Mr. Barnett said. He cites The Observer's complaints about one such project as an example of unreasonable expectations.

So when will this mystery tower rise on Broadway? Mr. Barnett would not say. He certainly has his hands full with four full-scale projects currently in the works. And while Morton Williams has opened a new store at 141 West 57th Street, it has yet to vacate 225 West 57th, the final piece of Mr. Barnett's colossal puzzle. But as 432 Park begins to rise and One57 continues to sell units at record prices, it seems like only a matter of time before something is underway off of Columbus Circle.

Riverside South and One57. Which can we expect for Broadway? (Extell)

Gary Barnett continues to bulldoze his way across the city. Just last week, his Extell Development unveiled plans for a new tower at Riverside South; found a partner for a stalled 50-story hotel near Times Square; and secured $700 million in financing from Abu Dhabi toward One57, the condo-hotel tower on West 57th Street that will be the tallest, and likely most expensive, when it is completed. As if that were not enough, the developer has begun work just down the block on another of its long-simmering projects.

At the corner of Broadway and 57th Street, Extell has plans for yet another soaring tower; it will be either commercial or residential, an official decision has not been made. That has not kept the developer from moving ahead with demolition of some of the buildings it owns on the site, a controversial task since Extell fought off an effort by the Landmarks Preservation Commission to preserve two of the structures in 2009.

Extell assembled the T-shaped plot last decade and then took out a $256 million mortgage on it, leading to quite a bit of consternation when the commission unexpectedly decided 1780 Broadway and 225 West 57th Street were worth saving. Once owned by B.F. Goodrich, they are part of a stretch of Jazz Age dealerships known as Automobile Row. In the end, the commission brooked a contentious deal to save 1780 Broadway while allowing 225 West 57th Street to be torn down.

The site, like so many others at the moment, had lain fallow through the downturn but has now reawakened. Between February and June of this year, Extell filed a series of demolition permits for various buildings on 57th and 58th streets, which the Department of Buildings approved last month. One of those buildings is now coming down, with others to follow. "We're doing salvage work on the interiors of 217 and 221 West 57th and then start this week to take down the three-story 217 floor by floor," an Extell spokesman said in an email last week.

The spokesman would not disclose whether the project had financing, but that has not stopped Extell before. Demolition commenced years before construction started on either the One57 site or the International Gem Tower in the Diamond District, and both began construction using only Extell's equity. As shown at One57, this strategy allowed the developer to act faster because Mr. Barnett did not need to wait for the wrecking ball, and his construction progress helped attract investors, a particularly challenging prospect during the current economic malaise.

Extell also declined to discuss an architect or designs for the 57th and Broadway project, which brings the story back to Riverside South.

For years, Mr. Barnett was known for developing rather pedestrian buildings in line with the man he replaced on that redoubt overlooking the Hudson, Donald Trump. More recently, he has striven for greater architectural ambition, hiring SOM for the International Gem Tower and KPF for the aborted World Commerce Centre. Meanwhile, notable firms such as Lucian LeGrange and FXFowle have been designing some of his residential projects.

Perhaps no architect has benefited more than Christian de Portzamparc, the French Pritzker Prize winner who had built nothing in the city besides the LVMH headquarters a decade ago, with few buildings to his name elsewhere. Now, Mr. Barnett has become his biggest patron, tapping Mr. de Portzamparc not only for One57 but also for Riverside Center, the five-tower complex that is the final piece of the Riverside South puzzle. Extell won a tough rezoning fight for the project last year.

Now that Mr. Barnett has turned to Goldstein Hill & West Architects, a firm best known for working with Costas Kondylis on some of the city's blander buildings, for the final Riverside South tower that is not a piece of Mr. de Portzamparc's plan, it raises the question of what sort of designs New Yorkers can expect at 57th Street and Broadway. Will it be another Pritzker-worthy prize, or has Extell returned to more pedestrian fare?

mchaban [at] observer.com | @MC_NYC