The Municipal Art Society is worried that the Midtown East upzoning would allow development that would block views of the Chrysler Building, among other landmarks.

Based on the arguments made by those both for and against the Midtown East rezoning—a "sweeping proposal," wrote New York magazine architecture critic Justin Davidson, with "swollen ambitions for the skyline"—one might think that the proposed land use change, which would affect 78 blocks between Second and Fifth Avenues and East 39th and East 57th Streets, would be a dramatic revision of New York City's most hallowed business district.

Crain's New York Business calls the plan "essential." The Post’s Steve Cuozzo, ever a friend to big real estate, says it's “vital to the city's future, a way to ensure that Manhattan's most desirable commercial zone can compete in the future with global capitals like London and Shanghai."

Meanwhile, opponents of the plan to rezone the area north of Grand Central Terminal have painted it as a death knell for some of New York's most iconic sites, and a massive imposition on an already-overburdened transit system. "The rezoning study makes no mention of protected-view corridors," wrote starchitect Robert A.M. Stern, coming out against the plan in today's New York Times. "I can hardly make my way to the stairways and escalators that lead to the Lexington Avenue subway platforms."

The Municipal Art Society, which has proposed landmarking 17 pre- and postwar towers in the area (the Historic Districts Council has a list of 33), commissioned mock-ups of potential new towers that could obscure the district's most famous buildings, writing, "The verifiable photo simulations show how iconic buildings such as the Chrysler building will not be visible from many vantage points if development occurs as proposed."

But delve into the actual numbers on the proposed rezoning, and it starts to look like much ado about nothing. As the Wall Street Journal’s Eliot Brown pointed out on Twitter, only 3.8 million square feet of office development is expected beyond what would be built without any zoning changes, according to an environmental assessment released by the city on Friday, or 4.4 million square feet of total extra development taking into account all uses. (While more than 14 million square feet of new office space could rise, two-thirds of that would replace existing buildings.)

Compare this to the rezoning of Manhattan's far west side earlier in Mr. Bloomberg's term, where nearly 26 million square feet of new office space was allowed in Hudson Yards—an area with far worse transit and less new investment ($8.4 billion for East Side Access, which will bring the Long Island Rail Road into Grand Central, versus just $2.1 billion for the 7 train extension to 34th Street and 11th Avenue)—and the Midtown East rezoning starts to look downright puny.

With just 3.8 million square feet of new office development expected out of the plan in an area that already contains 70 million square feet of office space, the Midtown East upzoning would barely add more floorspace to the district than the Port Authority is building in One World Trade Center—3.5 million square feet of floorspace in one tower alone.

Even the Williamsburg and Greenpoint rezonings, which added over 30 million square feet of residential development rights, dwarf what Mr. Bloomberg and the real estate industry want to add to Midtown East.

Given the relatively small numbers involved, both sides should drop the histrionics: the Grand Central upzoning just isn't that grand, and isn't going to make or break Midtown East either way.

Familiar interiors for the A.M. Stern fans.

It appears we underestimated the appeal of a key to Gramercy Park. Although we expect there's probably more than access to a gated garden that's driving sales at 18 Gramercy Park, the new condo conversion from the Zeckendorf/Robert A.M. Stern team. The 16-unit building had six units, all of them listed for more than $14.5 million, go into contract last week, according to Olshan Realty's Luxury Market report (although the units most likely went into contract sometime over the past month).

The most expensive unit, a duplex penthouse listed for $42 million, went into contract earlier this month, reportedly for the full $42 million ask to Houston Rockets owner Leslie Alexander. And while $42 million might look like a steal compared to the prices paid at 15 Central Park West, the Zeckendorf's other collaboration with A.M. Stern, it's an impressive get. A downtown record, in fact.

It's not Central Park, but you do get your very own key.

So what of these other units? Well, they're all floor throughs, but that's no surprise given that the building has 14 of them, plus the penthouse and a maisonette. A look at streeteasy reveals seven units in contract, including the 14th floor and 12th floors (listed for $17.7 million and $17.4 million respectively), a $16.5 million four-bedroom on the ninth floor, a $15.4 million four-bedroom on the second, a fifth-floor residence listed for $15 million and a fourth-floor spread asking $14.8 million. As many units were listed for the first time as already in contract at the end of last week, we're guessing that 18 Gramercy Park has been selling these beauties since early they first came on the market on September 4. Or maybe they really did just have the best week in all history.

So is there anything left for those with key lust and more than $10 million to burn? A floor-through on the 15th is asking $18.75 million, although that's $900,000 more than it was asking a week ago. Apparently cheered by the successful sales of the other units, the Zeckendorfs upped the ask from $17.8 million. The sixth and third floor units are also still available, and a few units—the 15th, the maisonette have yet to make their appearance on the market (although that doesn't mean that they're not there). Not all the units show up on streeteasy; we hear that the developers are not holding any units back. (The maisonette, the least expensive unit at $9.25 million, has yet to be snapped up, to our knowledge at least).

The units, or more precisely, the only unit that's shown in the renderings, looks lovely. We guess they would have to be to bring so many eager buyers. And while a conversion doesn't always stir the same excitement as new construction, at least the Parkside Evangeline, the former hotel that occupied the building for years, has a nice ring to it. Better sounding, at least, than the former St. Vincent's Hospital (although that hasn't seemed to slow sales either).

kvelsey@observer.com

Oaktree Capital's Howard Marks bought his Ritz Carlton pad for $18.8 million in 2007. Now he's asking $50 million. The excuse? A stunning renovation.

The paint had scarcely dried at 15 Central Park West before the building’s first residents set to knocking down the walls and stripping out the ultra-luxury condo's ultra-luxurious finishes. Not that the finishes were lacking—like the layouts, they were widely considered to be exquisite—a stunning marriage of old-fashioned grandeur and modern sensibilities. In fact, ex-Citigroup CEO Sandy Weill thought that architect Robert A.M. Stern had done such a fine job designing the building that he hired him to do a massive renovation on his brand new, $43.7 million penthouse.

In the upper echelons of Manhattan real estate, the pursuit of perfection is as common as Sub-Zero refrigerators and private elevator landings. Haunted by dreams of what could be, owners are forever tearing magnificent properties apart in the hopes of transforming them into even more magnificent properties.

Such dreams often pay off handsomely. To wit, Mr. Weill’s freshly-renovated penthouse was so striking that it fetched $88 million shortly after completion. But of course, it would surprise no one, particularly not Nicholas S.G. Stern, son of A.M. and the owner of boutique construction concern Stern Projects LLC., if the Russian tycoon who bought the celebrated spread started his own renovation any day now.

"If you have an extraordinary property, with unique features—location, terraces—and you put in a great deal of money to enlist a top-end architect, that's when an apartment turns into a trophy," said Mr. Stern, who is an experienced polisher of such trophies. With the collaboration of architects, interior decorators and a small army of craftsmen, Mr. Stern has turned both gutted apartments into pristine spaces and already pristine spaces into different, possibly more pristine spaces. His handiwork includes not only the penthouse at the Ritz Carlton (listed for $95 million), but also a downstairs spread listed for $50 million. At the moment, he is in the process of transforming two thirty-fifth floor apartments at 15 CPW into a single, sprawling gem with a $95 million price tag. "By giving it the royal treatment, you are, in fact, legitimizing it as a property in this uber-arena,” Mr. Stern explained.

Remodeling has always been popular among those with means, of course, but while it once took the form of fresh chintz patterns, these days it often hews closer to gut renovations.

“I’ve been in lots of places where they’ve spent gazillions to renovate and the next buyer comes in and totally redoes it,” said appraisal guru Jonathan Miller of Miller Samuel. “On one hand, what makes these properties trophies is the fact that they’re done. But then they’re gut renovated or totally redone to suit the new owners’ taste. It’s a strange dynamic, but right now that’s the very top of the market. Clearly people are willing to pay a premium for a home that’s finished.”

Brown Harris Stevens broker Paula Del Nunzio said that one of her renovated listings in 15 CPW sold for several million more than a nearby apartment in the same line.

“A renovation can add a great deal of value if it’s done in a classic manner that would appeal to an international standard of taste,” she said, adding a word of warning: “no idiosyncratic features designed to the taste of just one owner.”

Besides the thrill of winning a prized pad, there is a practical component to buying a newly-renovated home—even if it isn’t the next buyer’s idea of exquisite, it is likely closer than the unrenovated alternative. And certainly, there is a comfort in knowing that one could move in, if compelled by necessity, with only an interior decorator in tow. Renovations do require a significant investment of time and money, particularly with summer work hours, the limited window that many co-ops restrict construction to, forcing homeowners to wait out the other three seasons idly.

“A renovated apartment holds a great deal of attraction—we live in a city where it takes six weeks to upholster a pillow,” said Brown Harris Stevens broker John Burger. “A renovation really takes at the bare minimum six months and a good renovation can take 18 months.”

Mr. Burger also confided that buyers might want to avoid undertaking a massive renovation as they are widely known to “take a bit of a toll on relationships”—a phenomenon that Mr. Miller also remarked on. “Eighty to ninety percent of the divorce-related appraisals I’ve done are in the middle of a renovation,” he told us. “And if it’s not the Manhattan apartment, it’s the house in the Hamptons.”

We shuddered, along with Mr. Miller, at the thought of trying to sell a partially-renovated home in the midst of a divorce. And we couldn’t help but wonder—why would anyone spend months and wads of money, not to mention risk their marriage, to re-do an apartment that had literally just been redone?

“It’s the dream,” he responded. And sometimes it’s the nightmare. Renovations done by the former owners can be, well, infelicitous to put it mildly.

Mr. Stern, for one, admits to having seen some questionable aesthetic choices. What you might call distinct, but not distinctive.  Not that taste has anything to do with his job, he added—his role is to make sure that the client’s vision is assembled beautifully. No matter how hideous that vision might be.

“Certainly I’ve seen things that that I would not encourage my friends to live in,” he said. “This is the world we live in; there’s no limit to bad taste. And this is New York—there is always someone who will hold your hand while you throw money out a window.”

kvelsey@observer.com

Who, me? (Philip Johnson Glass House)

Robert A.M. Stern, that dapper dean of old-school architects, sits down with The Times for one of its patented 30-Minute Interviews today.

There's an interesting discussion of why 15 Central Park West is the bonanza that it is, and why Mr. Stern does not live there because of it (he likes the windows at the home he built for himself inside another project, The Chatham). But what really struck us was his song and dance about starchitects, and basically how the rest are pretenders.

Q.You’ve also been referred to as a “starchitect.”

A. That’s a term used for a lot of people. But since my name is Stern and “Stern” means star, I think that’s perfectly good. It’s all the other people that are intruding.

Robert A.M. Stern—smart as the buildings he designs.

mchaban [at] observer.com | @MC_NYC

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

Full steam ahead! (Courtesy of New York Historical Society/Columbia)

In light of the recent news that the former New York IRT Powerhouse has joined the "Seven to Save" preservation list, notable builders and community members have spoken out about the historic value of the building.

Robert A. M. Stern, the Yale architecture dean, dean of classicist architects and godhead of luxury throwback apartments noted:

By virtue of its vast interior spaces, its location, and its compelling industrial beauty, the powerhouse has the potential to serve us in many ways. Should Con Edison move on, it’s easy to imagine the building entering a new phase of life as an amenity for the entire city—a museum, a mixed-use center—who can predict?  But one thing is certain: it needs to be preserved.

The Durst Organization, those daring developers working on an unusual apartment pyramid just next door, commented:

The IRT Powerhouse is beautiful, compelling and historically significant building that deserves preservation and protection.

Local Councilwoman Gale Brewer, lady of the Upper West Side, only had the highest regards and joy to hear that the building was selected:

I am delighted that the Preservation League of New York State has chosen the Powerhouse as one of it's 2012 Seven to Save buildings.  This masterpiece of Beaux Arts design by Stanford White is a landmark by every measure; an icon of modernity and industrial history, architecturally superb, pleasing to the eye, and it stands at a prominent site on the Hudson shore.  We should no more destroy it than we would Grand Central, and we cannot afford to lose it as we Penn Station. Once preserved for adaptive use, it will become as iconic a symbol of New York as the Muss d’Orsay is of Paris and Tate Powerhouse of London. Let’s get serious about preserving the very best of our heritage, and save the powerhouse as a legacy for generations to come.

The full list of supportive quotes can be found on the Save the IRT Powerhouse blog.

mewing@observer.com

New York by Frank Gehry at 8 Spruce Street (Photo from NYC Loves NYC)

Once, living in a building with celebrity residents or prewar pedigree was the goal of every nouveau riche New Yorker. Trump International, anyone? Yes, please, 740 Park.

Now upwardly mobile denizens of our great city have slightly different aspirations: starchitect developments; that is, buildings designed by jet-setting, Pritzker-prize winning  architectural wizards, typically of the old guard variety. While some have suggested that the starchitect craze is the result of pure unadulterated vanity, it turns out that buildings have made a pretty penny since they began to sprout up a decade ago, Crain's reports.

Highrises designed by the likes of Frank Gehry, Richard Meier and Jean Nouvel, however, don't come cheap and require costly initial investments. In addition to keeping the precious architects content with a constant supply of imported mineral water and diamond encrusted drafting templates, the triple-premium materials and fixtures used in these buildings come with steep price tags.

While naysayers initially panned the starchitect craze as a pre-crash pipe dream incompatible with post-recession market realities, buildings like Gehry's "New York" at 8 Spruce Street have actually been doing remarkably well during the downtown, according to Crain's.

Frank Gehry's 76-story rental just south of the Brooklyn Bridge, built by Forest City Ratner, has attracted much critical acclaim. And it's filling up quite nicely, despite studio rents that typically top $3,000, according to Susi Yu, Forest City's senior vice president, retail development.

Similarly, everybody's favorite West Village condo, Superior Ink, has been selling big and legitimizing the starchitect craze. Designed by Robert A.M. Stern, the 17-story building was an investment, to say the least.

Its cost per square foot of construction made the project “one of the most expensive buildings we've built,” said Bruce A. Beal Jr., an executive vice president of Related Companies, Superior Ink's developer. On the other hand, sales for tower units, which started well before construction was completed in 2007, “exceeded our expectations,” he said.

Interest is still high. One buyer who bought an apartment for $25 million in 2009, resold it a year later for $31.5 million, which worked out to a whopping $4,983 per square foot.

Crain's looks at the beloved 40 Bond and how the phenomenon has even spread to the outer boroughs, where Richard Meier's On Prospect Park has, after some initial hiccups, become a smash success. The takeaway is clear: the post-boom era demands better architecture, not worse. Lest we slide back into the old reality of junkbox built at cut rates, the city will not only be aesthetically but economically worse off.

eknutsen@observer.com

"With the glass walls, people, really needed help conceptualizing how to live in the space," said James Lansill, a senior managing director at Corcoran Sunshine.

A furnished model apartment is nothing new in real estate, but it was Mr. Ford's first such commission from a developer. He took it as a challenge of "warming up" what--despite the curves and unusual architecture--he said was "still a white box, so to speak."

The results were rooms with natural touches, from vintage furniture upholstered in natural linen to wool and silk rugs and rough-hewn wood. There are also tubular kitchen bar stools with seat covers made from very long-haired Mongolian lamb.

So basically, we have this very sleek, very Trek-y apartment--in a building where more than 80 percent of the units have sold--and to offload it, we have to "warm it up." Why wasn't something "warm" built in the first place? Why are so many of our buildings, in this most energetic of cities, suddenly so cold? This reminds The Observer of the fight over the lobby at Jean Nouvel's 100 11th Avenue, which also had to be "softened" by designer Jennifer Post--much to the dismay of Nouvel--even if the softening was done with some very expensive boulders.

Despite the craze begun last decade by Richard Meyer and his Perry Street lofts, which led to an invasion of glassy, office-park condos across the city, the throwback work of Robert A.M. Stern still outsells them all. Of the top selling apartments last year, all were either in old coops, new condos that looked like old coops or loft buildings and the assorted mansion.

Consider this exchange from this week's New York magazine, where critic Justin Davidson and a panel of architects and historians try to determine the city's Best Building Ever:

Bernard Tschumi: Every one of those buildings [the High Line, the New Museum] is a bad "citizen"--in a good way. Before 2000, everything was about being contextual, and buildings were supposed to be good citizens. And when somebody from out of town asked me what new architecture to see, I had a hard time giving them an answer. Now I can tell them about all these exciting new buildings that break the pattern and don't play the typical New York game of the podium with the tower on top. So suddenly we have buildings that no developer in their right mind would build- but they did.

[...]

Robert A.M. Stern: Well, the buildings that entertain Bernard's friends, who jet in from wherever, don't really make any contribution except as big art objects. The city can take them, but what are they telling us? They don't offer any new insights about how people live, or about the relationship to the street or to the sky. Just a new curtain wall, and a strange one at that. To be a good citizen is to work with the city and not against it.

While the rest of the eight panelists tended to disagree with Stern on this point, is it any surprise that all but two of them, who voted for the Whitney, determined that our greatest building of all time was none other than the nearly centutry-old Grand Central Terminal? Perhaps we are a bunch of old fuddy-duddies after all.

mchaban [at] observer.com | @mc_nyo

They want to turn the Whitney into the city's first, and perhaps the world's premier, museum dedicated to architecture. Considering this is New York, the idea makes a good deal of sense:

We are all consumers of architecture, and if we treat it like garbage collection, gratefully relegating it to the margins of our attention unless it goes wrong, we wind up with the surroundings we deserve. Cities and suburbs can only be as dull and oppressive as we allow them to be.

An architecture museum done right would help cultivate a public that, in the past decade, has been shocked into caring about building.

The shock he is referring to is the events of 9/11, which indeed seemed to be a turning point for design awareness both in New York and across the country, one that only continued through the real estate boom as architects became showmen and marketers.

Though let us not pretend that a lot of lowest-common-denomentator dreck wasn't hastily thrown up to make a quick buck, as well. Which is probably why there will never be a full-scale architecture museum in the city, at least on the Whitney site. Though, really, do we need one at all?

The skyline is our museum, the reminder of the highs and lows. We've been getting on fine for more than a century without one, building bigger, brasher and sometimes boring-er with each passing day.

As Davidson points out, "Architecture is the aesthetic side of New York's abiding obsession -- real estate -- yet the city lacks a comprehensive museum to tell that story." And that will probably always be the case, because someone with more money and idle plans, like the Met, or Gucci or Fairway, will come along with designs of their own, for a "higher and better" use.

Yet so long as we keep building, so long as we never turn into Paris, New York will survive and even thrive. Our best art has always been in the studios and on the street, and there it should remain.

Related: The Whitney Through the Years. >>

mchaban [at] observer.com | @mc_nyo

Awarded by the Notre Dame School of Architecture, the Driehaus honors a different designer each year for their adherence to classic forms and methods. (Frank Gehry need not apply.) "More than any other practicing architect today, Bob Stern has brought classicism into the public realm and the mainstream of the profession, reinvigorating it for generations to come," Michael Lykoudis, Driehaus Prize Jury chairman, said in a statement. "We are honored to have him among the Driehaus Prize laureates."

In addition to his work on apartment buildings in New York, Stern is responsible for the Comcast headquarters, Philadelphia's tallest building; residences in Florida, Long Island, and at a number of Ivy League schools; Bed-Stuy's Excellence Charter School; and the George W. Bush Presidential Library.

The prize comes with a $200,000 check -- twice what the more heralded Pritzker pays out! -- though it would seem the successful Stern needn't the money. Indeed, he will be donating the prize money to Yale to support the study of classical architecture, according to The Times. It is an interesting decision, given that the school has always been a hotbed of progressive architecture, espeically under the august leaderhip of Stern, even with his personal proclivities for the past.

Stern told the Gray Lady that it was nice to be honored "not just for a set of pretty buildings, but for a set of values and principles and ideals."

He expounded on those further in an interview with The Observer three years ago:

Do you think of yourself as conservative architecturally?

Yeah. I am a conservative. In that sense I suppose I'm an appropriate architect for W. Bush's library. Forgetting politics, I do believe that architecture is a conversation across time. While every young architect and every young generation of architects thinks they have to break the mold, you cannot really create coherent cities, or campuses for that matter like Yale, if every building is the representative of its own unique moment and its own self-invented set of principles and language.

Keep up the good work, Bob!

mchaban [at] observer.com | @mc_nyo