setback in action
renters searching for a home with a bit of history.
Then, as companies relocated to Midtown after World War II, older downtown high-rises began to lose their cachet. What would ultimately restore these buildings back to their former glory is the revival of the Financial District as a residential neighborhood.
After Sept. 11, a trickle of downtown conversions turned into a deluge; today, condos and rentals in “classic” skyscrapers shaped by the 1916 zoning law are among New York City’s hottest properties.
Rachel Glazer, a broker for Brown Harris Stevens, was so taken with the apartments she was selling at 100 Barclay — where available units range from a 16th-floor studio asking $1.02 million to a four-bedroom 4 1/2-bath- room for $9.5 million — that she bought one herself. “The history, the finish, the amenities,” she says. “It was all just really impressive.”
The president of Magnum Real Estate Group and 100 Barclay’s developer, Ben Shaoul, says his 161-unit condo conversion gives New Yorkers “modern amenities and modern construction, but prewar charm.”
Older buildings often include covetable features, like high ceilings and deep basements with room for amenity spaces, that are more costly to build — and ultimately to buy — in a new-construction project. These structures also offer unrivaled period details such as gilded lobbies, ornamented facades and ultrathick, nearly soundproof walls. Best of all, there are “no cookie-cutter layouts,” Shaoul adds — 100 Barclay boasts nearly two dozen different floor plans.
Across the island, John Lari of the Claremont Group is converting a 1931 former bank building at 101 Wall St. to 52 residences. The design team, including Dutch talent Piet Boon, uses the creamy white building’s past commercial life to its advantage. Its wedding cakelike shape, which winnows towards the top of its 27 stories, allows for almost 22 different layouts, according to Lari, from smaller apartments in the lower stack to full-floor units in the tower.
The many upper setbacks — which are playful as well as 1916 zoning regulation-compliant — ensure fantastic terraces are available on duplexes and penthouses on the upper floors. On-the-market units start at a $1.18 million studio and top out at threebedroom, three-bathroom perch on the 17th floor asking $3.85 million.
There are obstacles, however, in making a 1920s or ’30s office tower work as apartments. For instance, the lower floors are almost too huge. In the tiered Woolworth Building — seen by many as the model for the 1916 ordinace even though it was built before the law passed — the lower floors are 20,000 square feet apiece. That’s why Ken Horn of Alchemy Properties, the developer of the Woolworth’s under-construction residences, is only converting the upper portion, where there’s “light and air on four sides.” (The lower floors will remain offices.) Alchemy’s 34 apartments also utilize the terra cotta-adorned setbacks for outdoor spaces; units range from $5 to $10 million — though the seven-story penthouse atop the building is going to go for much more. A price for that pad hasn’t been officially released, but rumors have swirled for years that it will be well over $100 million.
Setbacks aren’t just for buyers. Adam Rose — whose company is converting 70 Pine St., the 1932 Cities Services building formerly home to insurance giant AIG, into rentals — handled the issue of oversized square footage at the bottom of the tower by putting in a Q&A extended-stay hotel, which takes up four floors. Apartments in the 612-unit building are already on the market, ranging from $2,804 for a studio to $9,729 for a three-bedroom. Next year, a restaurant and lounge by industry veterans April Bloomfield and Ken Friedman (behind The Spotted Pig and The Breslin) will take up the setback-laden 62nd to 66th floors of the tower, offering unparalleled views — and priority reservations for residents.
Another notable project is in the works at 1 Wall St., where elite architect Robert A.M. Stern has taken on the task of converting the 1929 Irving Trust building — most recently home to the Bank of New York Mellon — into a combination of condominiums, rentals and retail. The building’s spectacular Red Room by mosaicist Hildreth Meière (of Radio City Musical Hall and Temple Emanuel fame), which has been closed for over 15 years, will likely become a shop, reopening one of downtown’s grandest spaces to the public. The 1916 zoning regulations were ultimately replaced by “tower-ina-plaza” codes — think modernist Midtown buildings like Lever House and the Seagram Building — which have in turn been refined many times since. Yet echoes of older tactics persist. Take 200 Amsterdam Ave., which will eventually house 112 apartments. The 666-foot tower’s recently revealed design by Elkus Manfredi shows seven setbacks that allow for terraces. Light can flood upper floors while still reaching the street — the very reason the original law was developed. With that, the city’s skyscraper paradigms come full circle.