Affordable or not affordable, that is the question. (Durst/Fetner)

Tomorrow, Durst/Fetner will go before the Zoning and Franchise Subcommittee of the City Council, one of the final stops in the months-long public approval process for the developer's angular apartment building at the western edge of 57th Street. Councilwoman Gale Brewer has sent a letter to the developer outlining her demands ahead of the hearing. They largely follow concerns she has had from the start, namely the affordability of the project, community space and an enticing streetscape for the project.

The development, designed by Danish wunderkind Bjarke Ingels and his firm BIG, has drawn international attention for its unusual design, but lingering issues continue to anger the community, including Ms. Brewer. Last month, the project was approved by the City Planning Commission after some minor modifications.

The biggest remaining issue is clearly permanent affordability for the 20 percent of the project's 753 units that are to be set aside for low- and moderate-income residents. "It has been my strong preference that affordable units be designated as permanently affordable," Ms. Brewer writes. "Without permanently affordable units, the city would not be able to maintain its mixed-income residential character."

Currently, the affordability mandate is set to expire after 35 years because the Durst/Fetner does not own the land but instead has a 99-year lease on it from a family whose descendants now number more than a hundred, making negotiations very difficult. To extend affordability beyond 35 years, the developers argue, would be to risk the project's future.

Jordan Barwotiz, a spokesman for the developer, said, without getting into specifics, that the firm is hopeful it can can reach a deal at the council to get the project approved. "We look forward to working with Councilmember Brewer and her colleagues to make the best project possible," he said.

Here is the full letter.

A tweaked north side for Durst/Fetner's 625 West 57th Street. (Durst/Fetner)

Big, pointy apartments. (Durst/Fetner)

When Douglas Durst began deciding, yet again, what to do with the almost block-long property he owns at 57th Street and the Hudson River, City Planning Commissioner Amanda Burden urged the developer to think big. A high-tech data center, a school and a hotel had all fallen through, so Mr. Durst had fallen back on that most reliable form of New York City development: housing.

Ms. Burden wanted something iconic, especially for a project on such a prominent street at such a prominent location right on the waterfront. With Hudson River Park right there, it ought to be iconic. Mr. Durst delivered something BIG indeed, hiring the Danish wunderkinds at Bjarke Ingles Group to design his project.

Yesterday, Ms. Burden got to put her official stamp on the project, when she and the rest of the City Planning Commission approved Durst/Fetner’s BIG pyramid. It was the second-to-last step in the arduous months-long public review process, in many ways made all the easier by a dynamic design that has made this arguably the most unusual apartment building in the city.

"Our approval will facilitate development of a significant new building with a distinctive pyramid-like shaped design and thoughtful site plan that integrates the full block site into the evolving residential, institutional, and commercial neighborhood surrounding it," Ms. Burden said before voting in favor of the project.

Contained within the striking design are 753 apartments in a building that tapers from CKCKthree stories along the river up to a pinnacle of CKCK38 stories. It has an unusual sloping aspect (technically a tetrahedron, not a pyramid) with a massive courtyard cut into the middle that is almost the site of a football field. The cutout also affords every apartment with an outdoor terrace, a feature that was especially important to Mr. Ingels.

The commission required a few modifications to the project, dealing primarily with how it is experienced from the street. There is a limit on the amount of signage and obstructions that can go in the windows of the retail lining 57th Street and the West Side Highway, to ensure transparency and a sense of activity that does not obscure what is going on inside. The fear is a blank wall would deaden the street life, as has happened ion places like Fourth Avenue in Brooklyn.

The developer has made similar gestures on 58th Street to ensure vibrancy on what is otherwise a block-long stretch of almost blank building. Retail wraps the corners of the building, but otherwise, there is a lobby and a loading dock and little else.

Part of the reason for this is the building is located in the 100-year-flood plane, so the Con Ed substation cannot go in the basement but instead by located above-grade. The utility needs access to the facilities at all times, so they have to be on the street, and cannot go higher up in the building. The developer also argued that there is barely any retail on 58th Street as is, so forcing it into the northern side of the building would be impractical and difficult to lease.

The solution was to establish a retail space within the lobby located in that section of the building, and to also install glass vitrines along the blank parts of the façade that could feature plants or sculptures on a rotating basis, creating a more engaging streetscape.

"It's an important approval, and we're pleased with her support and input," Mr. Durst said in an interview.

Previously, the developer agreed to additional modifications when the project received approvals two months ago from Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer. That included widening the sidewalks and narrowing the driveway between 57th and 58th streets located in the middle of the block at the main entrance to the building. Durst/Fetner will also provide seating and landscaping in the space. The developer also agreed to improve a connection to Hudson River Park at 59th Street, a block north of the development. The connection currently passes under an overpass of West Side Highway, and the developers will work with the city and state departments of transportation to spruce up the space.

"In all, this is an exciting project on a pivotal site that will benefit its occupants, the neighborhood and the city as a whole," Ms. Burden said.

One aspect of the project that has yet to be addressed is how long the affordable units in the building will remain affordable. The development is being built through the city's 80/20 program, which means 20 percent of apartments will be reserved for low- and moderate-income families, while the remaining number will be market rate.

Currently, those units will only be eligible for less well-off families for 35 years. The community board desperately wants permanent affordability, but Durst/Fetner insists it cannot agree to such an arrangement because they do not own the land. The developers themselves are leasing it from a family that has owned the land for more than a century, and is now comprised of some 100 trustees Durst/Fetner must negotiate with about extending the affordability window.

But local Councilwoman Gail Brewer has insisted the developers had better get negotiating, because she is willing to torpedo the project at the City Council—the final step in the public review process, where Ms. Brewer will have almost total say over the project—if her constituents do not get what they want.

Welcome to the future. (Durst Fetner)

What the site currently allows. (Curbed)

Curbed stumbled on Durst Fetner's closely watched site on West 57th Street and the Hudson, and our blogging comrades discovered that excavation is underway at the site. The Observer has been eagerly awaiting a groundbreaking ceremony, set to coincide with the developers filing for a rezoning to transform the site from a bland four-story box into the dramatic pyramid apartments designed by Danish wunderkind Bjarke Ingels. It appears Durst Fetner is going the quiet route for the time being on the project known as West 57.

When The Observer inquired about an official groundbreaking, a Durst rep responded "For the building we aren’t going to build?" Indeed, what is currently taking place is foundation work in preparation for the BIG building, which still needs to go through the lengthy public review process. "I don’t see us doing anything in particular because of the weird nature of the groundbreaking," the Durstee said.

Previously, a land-use application was expected in April or May, so the fact that site work is underway could be a good sign for something coming soon. Something BIG.

mchaban [at] observer.com | @MC_NYC

Up, up and away. (Durst Fetner)

It may just be the most awaited project of the year, and by next year, it will begin to become a reality. West 57, the high-design ziggurat created by the cheeky Bjarke Ingels Group for Durst Fetner, is set to break ground as early as March. That is what Bjarke Ingels let slip at the ASAP party Monday night.

During a presentation of his playful projects—the plaza of many countries, the trash-to-power plant that blows smoke rings—atop the Standard, when Mr. Ingels got to the slides on West 57, he declared very excitedly, "Starting in March, this very exciting project will begin to take shape just a few miles from here."

A Durst spokesman confirmed the timeline for the project, though he said excavation work might not start until early April. That is also when the Dursts expect to begin the public review process for the pointy property. The hope is, once that is completed, so will be the foundations, which are currently being made for an as-of-right building but will also be able to accommodate the new, cutting edge design.

That way, should the new project be approved, all will be ready to rise sometime next fall. The developers have not yet sought financing, but that has not stopped them before—they purchased 1212 Fifth with cash, as well as the site for their 31st Street hotel. Meanwhile, further up 57th Street, Gary Barnett pulled a similar move, launching his similarly named and equally ambitious One57 before he secured a loan to finish it.

Big things going on that part of time.

mchaban [at] observer.com | @MC_NYC

Ian Schrager shares Steve Jobs' obsession with detail.

The Commercial Observer: Will the style of PUBLIC New York be similar to how PUBLIC Chicago was designed?

Ian Schrager: No. It will be the same attitude, the same approach. But it will be different. That’s because it’s New York, and New York is different from Chicago and really we have fun redoing each room (in a) new, original style, but with the same attitude, the same approach.

Who is handling the design of the hotel?

Right now we’re responsible for laying out the hotel, obviously, and all the finishes and a lot of it will be done by my in-house design staff.

But in all likelihood, we’ll also be working with John Pawson, who is an English architect.

And what can you tell us about The Clock Tower project? When will that become an Edition hotel?

Because they  (Marriot International, the owners of the Clock Tower, and with whom Mr. Schrager is a partner) are a public company, I don’t really like to talk about it very much. It’s really their show.

I am thinking that The Dakota, which was built around the same time – I think there was twenty year’s difference. I think The Clock Tower was built in 1909 and The Dakota was built in the 1880s, and so I am very much inspired and would use the Dakota as a point of departure.

Not Gothic, like the outside architecture of the Dakota, but more the inside, with the rich woods, and the proportions, and the way that all works on the inside. We would use that as a point of departure for The Clock Tower.

And what would you say would be the point of departure for PUBLIC New York?

It’s really been very much inspired by Apple and Steve Jobs and the way… every aspect of (the design) is important. The screw in the back of the computer is as important as the screw in the front, and it’s really bared down and simple and pure. When you look at it, everybody gets it, everybody understands it. That basic approach is a real influence on me. Also, the service that they offer in the Apple Stores. When you go in there, you really get the service you need to get in and get out really quickly.

They have that Genius Bar, and you don’t have to wait on line to pay. When I saw that, I asked myself ‘what kind of service is that? Is that luxury service?’ I came away saying ‘no, it’s just the service you need.’ So that was a real inspiration for me and kind of the great service we want to provide.

Also Trader Joe’s, the supermarket was a big inspiration, because it’s a combination of elite, sophisticated shoppers (standing) right alongside bargain hunters, all sharing the same experience shopping in the same store and cutting across all demographics. Both of those two had a tremendous impact on me for this brand.

Do you share a Steve Jobs’ fastidious obsession with glass?

Absolutely. Every single thing is a matter of life and death to me. Because you never really know what thing pushes it over the top. There’s no rulebook. You just try to sort of overwhelm the customer with the details. Not at a kind of superfluous kind of way, just don’t leave a stone unturned and try to make every single aspect – no matter how big, no matter how small – important, so that when it all comes together, there’s a certain alchemy that happens. Which is what happens with (Jobs’ products)… Walt Disney did it like that also, and both those guys have been incredible inspiration as me.

Do you use the same glassmaker as Apple?

Well, I would! I just can sort of empathize with him so much…You never really know what a person’s going to respond to. You just don’t know. Therefore everything becomes important, and to me everything is a matter of life and death.

Will you have any say in the design of the rentals?

No, I won’t.

What do you think the experience is going to be with two separate entities living in one building?

I think it’s going to be a “one plus one makes three” situation. I think that it’s really going to enhance the apartments, because you’re going to be able to provide hotel services and you’re going to be able to pick and choose what you want and when you want it.

You can have all the benefits of having a personal staff, but just pick and choose when you want it. I think it’s great for the (rental) apartments and I think some of the facilities that we’re doing for the apartment, the hotel guests will also be able to use. I think it just makes it better.

I’m very reluctant to talk about the residential. (Durst Fetner Residential) are the experts on that. The only thing I do know is that it will be first rate and of the highest quality and they’ll make every possible effort to make it special. If I didn’t feel that, I wouldn’t want to be a part of it.

What will be the going rate for a room? Will it be similar to what PUBLIC Chicago is charging (that hotel’s starting rates are at $135 a night)?

It’s affordable, but it’s for a new class of person. It’s for rich people and for people who are not so rich and young people and people who are older. Because I think value is going to be critically important going forward.

I don’t think it has anything to do with a bad economy. I just think people want value for their money, and I think if you can stay in a really, really cool place that gives you really, really great service, and you get everything you want and you can pay less than you would at some other hotel that gives you an array of services that you really don’t care about, why would you stay there?

Do you have any other hotels in the works?

We’re looking at a hotel in downtown (NYC) as well. We just won a bid for a hotel in London. And we’re looking to expand quickly. It’s the same strategy that I always had, and that is to go in to these 24 hour international gateway cities. It’s that same strategy, but not make the mistakes I made before by not having a brand. This time I want to do it with a brand.

Drosen@Observer.com

Durst Fetner Residential brought their idea for the pyramid-like 57th Street apartment complex to Community Board 4 last night to a mixture of adoring fans and skeptical residents.

The project, first immortalized in comic form, then a City Planning-ordered fly through video, would be Mr. Ingels' North American debut after several critically acclaimed projects in his
native Denmark.

"City Planning is brain dead," a man clad in suede pants and a tweet jacket told The Observer in a thick Eastern European accent. "There's a lot of conflict."

If there is, then the kind of conflict peddled by Hell's Kitchen and Clinton residents is of the most cordial kind. The board members seemed almost smitten by the project, or at least more so than a rezoning proposal on nearby 11th Avenue that the board
eviscerated, pushing back The BIG/Durst presentation 40 minutes.

Many in the crowd were most impressed by the ambition of the project.

Mr. Ingels called his plan a way to fuse the density of a New York skyscraper with a Copenhagen garden. The final project will be "a way for Clinton/Hell's Kitchen residents to really connect to the waterfront," he said, while not taking away the river views currently enjoyed by residents of the Helena, another Durst residential property.

Not that there won't be roadblocks in the way. The thought of more rezonings--this project sits just two blocks north of the aforementioned 11th Avenue rezoning and is just a block south of Extell's huge Riverside Center--caused plenty of pained looks and squirming on the part of the board members.

The rest of the community's concerns were summed up by the West Side Neighborhood Alliance, an affordable housing group. "The neighborhood is now becoming sort of a bastion of experimental architecture," one of the group's members said. "What [this project is] offering the community is an iconic piece of architecture. I do think you really need to think about what else might benefit the community."

That, for Durst and Ingels, means affordable housing, which right now is projected, but not locked in, at an 80-20 split--a deal that would also reap the developers building incentives. Many members of the board were relatively silent on issues like public green spaces, which they complain are few and far between in Hell's Kitchen, and parking during the meeting, but they chimed in that affordable housing needs to be included in perpetuity.

Attendees did seem placated by the retail space and cultural programs built into the current design. The retail, which includes one large retail space and several other, smaller ones, got a positive response from the group. City Councilwoman Gale Brewer did point out that the larger space should not include a Costco, a swipe at Extell's plans, or a Walmart, a company the City Council is currently at war with.

Current plans give the cultural program 170,000 square feet on the third floor with an entrance on the southeast corner of the building. One potential tenant is the International Center of Photography, currently housed in another Durst property at Sixth Avenue and 43rd Street.

As for the sustainability features of the project, one speaker asked if the project would be built to LEED standards. Any queston of that was quickly quelled when another attendee replied, "Of course it will be LEED-certified. It's Durst."

mcoyne@observer.com

Not only is this an entirely new building typology—a smallscale-meets-high-rise residential building the likes, and shape, of which the city has never seen—but the fact that it is being pursued after the bursting (at least temporarily) of the city's real estate bubble demonstrates that architecture is not, in fact, dead, as many had feared. Developers, at least the smart ones, realize that investing in quality repays itself. Who knows, maybe this will be the new normal, and what a place to start!

Yesterday, Durst Fetner Residential announced that it is officially moving forward with the 600-unit rental project to be designed by Ingel's eponymous group (BIG), following a profile of the architect in the latest issue of New York magazine. The project will go before the local community board Wednesday night, and Douglas Durst told The Observer in an interview that he expects the project to begin the official public review process a year from now. That means we could see construction as early as 2012.

When asked why he would dare undetake such a dynamic project in this market, cousin and co-conspirator Jody Durst reponded, "A strong back and a weak mind."

"We had nothing better to do at the time," Douglas Durst followed. Then he gave the real explanation. "Basically the answer is, we know, to get the approvals, we had to do something spectacular," the elder Durst said. So this was the will of exacting Planning Commissioner Amanda Burden? "Certainly not!" (Later in the interview, Douglas Durst would allow: "We've been told by the Planning Commission that this is really a gateway to Manhattan and it really has to be stunning.")

And stunning it is. The building is a mash-up of European and New York styles, combining a short, blocky apartments-around-a-courtyard model with a high-rise tower. The result is a sloping structure that maximizes harbor views not only for those inside the building but also the neighbors whose sightlines might also be obstructed. New York's Justin Davidson enthuses thusly:

In a gridded city, reason would seem to dictate an architecture of seamless planes and perpendicular lines, but Ingels has found a more efficient eccentricity. Balconies slash the inclined plane. The apartments slant away from the corridor like fishbones so that windows on 58th Street frame westward views. Ingels is a virtuoso of repetitive protrusions: Instead of facing the building with a slick screen of glass, he breaks it into a Cubist expanse of windowed bays

It is one of the grand victories of West Side redevelopment, from the Village to Chelsea to West Harlem, that not only new housing is being built, but it is being built inside bold architecture. In fact, this is yet another paradigm shift, as so many of those magnificent buildings, like Nouvel's 100 11th and Gehry's Beekman Tower in the Financial District are really just the same old apartment buildings sheathed in facade finery. This building is an entirely new shape, a new way of living and building. Whether we see another like it remains to be seen, but the very existance of this property, and Christian de Portzamparc's Riverside South for Extell just to the north, is a sign of a promising future.

"We see long-term value in doing a project like this," Jody Durst said. It is the same reason his firm embraced sustainable design all those years ago, with the Helena rental building across the street and the Conde Nast and Bank of America towers in midtown. It's a value proposition for one of the city's oldest and smartest real estate families. "It's the only building of its kind," Douglas Durst said.

Yet Davidson of New York suggested the Dursts had low-balled on architects in the past, saying Douglas Durst "has generally opted for experienced, deliberate firms like FXFowle and its spinoff, Cook + Fox. A revolutionary he is not." Well... "I take exception to that," the developer told The Observer. "We've been on the progressive side for a long time."

Still, the Dursts know they are doing something special on this site. After all, they told us they would be pursuing the same high-level of sustainable design at another development site Durst Fetner controls on Sixth Avenue between 30th and 31st streets. "I think it will be an environmentally responsible site with more conventional architecture," Jody Durst said. That is if the Bank of America Building can be called conventional.

With that, he acknowledged no design was yet prepared, though a firm had been selected. Which one, neither Douglas nor Jody would not say. Yet perhaps after the success of Bjarke Ingels' project becomes apparent, Durst Fetner might change its mind and consider something more ambitious once again.

mchaban [at] observer.com | @mc_nyo

The city's Department of Housing Preservation and Development, which is administering the RFP, would not say who was in, but according to the Journal, AvalonBay, Douglaston Development, and a Durst Fetner/Jonathan Rose joint venture have been confirmed. (If you know of any of the other four, there's an email at the bottom of this post for a reason.)

The bidders are vying for the first two of six parcels on the 30-acre site, with the requirement to build 1,000 units of housing and a 1,100-seat school. The project is meant to be a haven for the city's increasingly squeezed middle class, with 60 percent of its units being set aside as affordable housing for families of four making between $63,000 and $130,000. The project was conceived in part as a paean to the loss of Stuytown--which is of course now not so lost, so maybe we don't need this anymore?

Why, with the real estate economy so bad, is there so much interest in this project? Besides the obvious fact that it's such a prime spot, just across the East River? Besides the fact that this thing isn't exactly going up tomorrow? Maybe it has something to do with affordable housing being one of the few real estate sectors that can actually still get financing.

mchaban [at] observer.com / @mc_nyo

Case in point: 1212 Fifth Avenue.

On Sept. 15, The Commercial Observer broke the news that Durst Fetner Residential had closed on its purchase from MSMC Residential Realty (Mt. Sinai) of the 15-story, 76-unit residential building at the southeast corner of Fifth Avenue and 102nd Street.

The big reveal came from the lips of Douglas Durst in a sit-down interview:

"We just closed on a building at 102nd Street and Fifth Avenue where we’re going to be renovating a building into condos and working with Mt. Sinai to develop an 80/20 building for them. Mt. Sinai owns it and it’s a rental building. This is being done through our partnership with Hal Fetner and Durst Fetner will be the developer."

On Sept. 16, the New York Post's Lois Weiss re-reported the news. She quoted Hal Fetner as saying that the price tag was "was more than we ever expected." Sources told her the price was under $100 million.

Emphasis on under.

Today, the deed went up on the city's deed database. The price tag: $42 million.

How anti-climactic!

Update 

Mr. Fetner later told The Observer that, "The price is fair in terms of the overall negotiations that we had with Mount Sinai. But it was more than we expected to pay."

Mt. Sinai, for its part, will remain as a joint-venture partner in the redevelopment of the building, which has only nine remaining occupied units: eight rent-controlled and one rent-stabilized.

"Right now, we’re presuming they’re going to stay put," Mr. Fetner said. "We’ve made every allowance to make sure we accommodate them in every way possible."

The apartment building formerly housed Mt. Sinai doctors and staff.

In addition to the condo redevelopment, Durst Fetner is developing for Mr. Sinai a more-than-50-story rental apartment tower in the courtyard behind 1212 Fifth Avenue. That construction, designed by architects Rafael Pelli and SLCE, is expected to take 36 months.

Demolition of empty floors at 1212 Fifth is suppose to begin in October, with full construction starting in January and slated for completion in about 14 months, ideally just as the housing market returns.

"That sounds good to me," Mr. Fetner said. "We’re not timing it to come on the market when the market is bad. We’re encouraged by some of the signs we’re seeing out there. It would be our hope when these come on the market a year-and-a-half from now, the market will be much stronger than it is now. We also look at Fifth Avenue as a non-cylical, timeless investment for us."

As to developers' unwillingness to discuss pricing with the press, Mr. Fetner would only say, "There’s nothing good that can ever come of it." 

drubinstein@observer.com