The Stack, 4857 Broadway: Review and Ratings

Review of 4857 Broadway by Carter Horsley

This handsome, 7-story building at 4857 Broadway in Inwood is known as The Stack and is one of the city’s first modular construction residential projects.

It was developed by Jeffrey M. Brown of Brown Hill Development and Kim Frank and Gluck+.

It was completed in 2013.

Gluck+ also designed the building.

It has 28 rental apartments.

Bottom Line

This very attractive, mid-rise, modular apartment building has a syncopated look as the modules alternately recede and project and some of them have Juliet balconies with the result of the modest building having a very interesting dynamic.

Description

The building is “U”-shaped with a 30-foot-long courtyard that offers more exposures.

The basement and first floor were conventionally built.

The front of the building is metal-clad.

Amenities

The building has a bicycle room, a virtual doorman, storage and a laundry.

Apartments

Apartment 7B is a three-bedroom unit with a long entry foyer that leads to a 30-foot-long “entertain” space with an open kitchen and an 11-foot-long “breathe” terrace.

Apartment 6D is a two-bedroom unit with a long entry foyer that leads to a 23-foot-long “entertain” area with an open kitchen that opens onto a 23-foot-wide “breathe” terrace.  The bedrooms are called “dreams.”

Apartment E on the 2^nd to the 5^th floors is a two-bedroom unit with an entry that opens into a 19-foot-long “entertain” space with an open kitchen alcove.

Apartment A on the 2^nd to the 5^th floors is a studio unit with a 20-foot-long “live” space with an open kitchen.

History

An article in the September 15, 2014 issue of Engineering News Record noted that the building is the tallest completed modular building in the country.

It said that the developer bought the site in 2007 and that it “took three years to lease the adjacent lot to stage the construction of the building.”

Another delay was the Buildings Department not issuing a permit and requiring fire-proofing modifications mandated by the Fire Department.  The article said that “when the plans were filed for the first permit, there was no mechanism on the online application to indicate the modular nature of the apartment units.  Subsequently, the city has modified its applications to so indicate.

Rules of the George Washington Bridge prohibited the delivery of more than four modules a night and the developed told ENR he could have erected more than four a day “but we couldn’t get them to the site.

According to a July 25, 2014 article by Laignee Barron in the NY Daily News, the building saved 15 percent compared to traditional construction and “the work got finished in 11 months instead of 16 for ground-up apartment building.”