Another sellout for Stern? (Related)

The Stern tower next to its taller neighbors. (Related)

It may be bigger than Baltimore or Stamford, and it will probably be prettier, too. The plans for Hudson Yards continue to impress, as the office towers get refined and high-profile firms sign up to do the residential buildings. The first big news was that High Line designers Diller Scofidio + Renfro would be responsible for one of the apartment buildings, and now The Observer has learned that none other than money-minting godhead Robert A.M. Stern is designing another.

Steve Ross has actually been a regular client of Mr. Stern's in the past.

The architect has completed a number of residential developments for The Related Companies both in New York and around the country, among them the Chatham and Brompton on the Upper East Side, the Westminster in Chelsea and two towers in Battery Park City. The latest project, Superior Ink (where Mr. Ross purchased an apartment for $0.00) set the record for a downtown sale when it went for $31.5 million two years ago.

Related must hope to be bringing similar sales, and hype, to its nascent project on the Far West Side, where construction of the first office tower, anchored by Coach, is just getting under way. That and the Diller Scofidio tower are expected to be completed around the same time, in 2015. When the Stern tower will come online is unclear, but like its two, it is being built on terra firma, not the platform Related has to build over the Penn Station rail yards, so it will likely be sooner rather than later.

The tower is not technically part of the Hudson Yards, located across 30th Street, on the southwest corner of 10th Avenue, in the crook between the High Line and its spur. The site has hosted a Tom Colicchio food bizarre, a Target-sponsored play ground and other events in the past.

Plans have already been filed with the Department of Buildings to begin working on the project, though Related, which declined to comment for this story, was not planning to announce it officially until next year.

While designs have not been officialized, and could change like those of the KPF-designed office towers, the plan at present is not that dissimilar to what has already appeared in renderings of the site released upon the Coach groundbreaking. They show a red-brick building, similar Superior Ink, rising to more than 40 stories—tall, but not tall by Hudson Yards standards.

Considering the horror Curbed commenters expressed when they saw this project and believed it to be the work of Ishmael Leyva, the developer-friendly boxed-living builder who is the architect of record on this project, The Observer cannot help but wonder what their reaction to the very same building will be now that they know one of their favorites is responsible for it.

mchaban [at] observer.com | @MC_NYC

The neighborhood that was once the hub of the American music-publishing industry in the early 20th century has undergone many transformations since it became known as Tin Pan Alley. Between 1893 and 1910, nearly 20 music-publishing companies moved to West 28th Street, according to the Historic Districts Council. Over the years, they have been replaced by furriers, florists and, lately, mass-market wholesalers, but the five-story, 1852 rowhouses at 49-51 still exist in much the same condition today as when the first songwriters, M. Whitmark and Sons, first moved there.

In October, however, it looked like the last remnants of Tin Pan Alley could be demolished to make way for a condo, when the Lost City blog broke the news that all five buildings were on the market for $44 million.

As public opinion moves further against the plan and the economy plunges deeper into recession, a deal is looking increasingly unlikely. The five, mixed-use contiguous properties would yield over 111,000-square feet of “prime Chelsea Property” after demolition, according to the listing that first appeared on the real estate Web site LoopNet in the early fall, along with renderings of a 16-story residential building with 24 retail spaces proposed for the site. Though it remains up, the site says the “property is no longer available.”

Whether the buildings' owner Jo-Fra Properties bowed to public pressure or to the limitations of the credit markets is unclear, but the buildings no longer seem to be on the market, at least officially. As of Sunday, the HDC had amassed 414 signatures on its petition to the Landmarks Preservation Commission to put the Tin Pan Alley buildings on track for landmark status and, earlier this month, a LPC spokeswoman said the commission was “researching the history of the buildings and reviewing whether they'd be eligible for landmark designation.”

The Coldwell Banker agent marketing the buildings did not respond to a request for comment, and Jo-Fra Properties could not be reached.

Simeon Bankoff, director of the HDC, was unsure whether the buildings were still for sale. Regardless, he said they are still “very much under threat."

“When we last had contact with [brokers at] Coldwell Banker and Helmsley-Spear in mid-October, we got contradictory information,” Mr. Bankoff said. “The buildings still need work and we would feel much more comfortable with the LPC overseeing that work.”

Most Tin Pan Alley tenants and neighboring business owners on 28th Street have heard rumors about the sale, but they believe that a low appetite for real estate should keep developers at bay for the time being. One ground-floor retail tenant of one of the buildings said existing apartment tenants are one of the biggest obstacles for potential investors.

“The problem is whoever is going to buy it has to deal with the rent-stabilized tenants," he said, but did not want to risk his relationship with his landlord by having his name published. “If you want them out to raze the building and put up a luxury apartment you have to buy them out and they all want a lot of money. It’s time-consuming. That’s a trial, that’s long litigation. So whoever buys the building buys it with that in mind.”

Meanwhile, Jo-Fra has to meet its obligations to the tenants of 51, 53 and 55 West 28th Street who won a suit to get their homes zoned for residential usage in August 2007, according to one of the tenants involved in the case, Leland Bobbe. Though he had not been surprised to learn the buildings were up for sale, he expected it to be a “long process.”

Mr. Bobbe pays less than $1,000 per month for the 1,000-square-foot apartment he has lived in since 1975—when he first arrived his rent was just $160. The landlords have begun work to bring 55 West 28th Street up to code, Mr. Bobbe said, but plans have yet to be approved for the six other units slated for renovations under the case. Before a potential buyer can even submit a demolition application, all the apartments need to be brought up to code and then the tenants need to be offered new two-year leases. “So it’s going to be a while, at least five or six years [until the demolition becomes a possibility]. Plus, now the buildings come with tenants,” Mr. Bobbe said. “So the value of the buildings is lower ‘cause they would have to buy us out. I don’t think it’s imminent.

“It kind of got people going because of the history, but they are asking $44 million in a lousy economy. I can’t imagine anyone outside a Shah from the Middle East or some Japanese businessman would buy the building for that.”