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About Platinum, 247 West 46th Street
This 42-story residential condominium tower, which is known as Platinum, is one of the sleekest in the Times Square/Theater District. It was developed by SJP Residential Properties of Parsippany, N.J., of which Stephen J. Pozycki and Allen F. Goldman are principals.
It is on the former site of McHale’s Restaurant, a popular Theater District hangout.
The Platinum project has been described as “an historic occasion” as it was the first project to attempt to utilize transferable air-rights created in 1998 but on the drawing boards for “over a generation.”
At a Community Board 4 meeting, Paul Selver of the law firm of Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel represented the developer and indicated that while the developer was seeking approval initially only for the “discrete” application of a 38-story tower before the committees, it had larger plans. Those plans included seeking a zoning text-change to permit the transfer of other air-rights from the St. James Theater on 47th Street that would enlarge the building to 42 stories and 220 apartments.
Mr. Selver told the meeting that the air-rights agreement required the theater transferring air rights to agree to maintain their property for the life of the new development and agree to maintenance inspections at least every five years and to only use their property for “legitimate theater.” The theater agreements were to be in the form of restrictive covenants that would apply to any future owners of the property.
As part of the special district’s air-rights transfer requirements, the developer would contribute $10 per square foot of transferred air rights into a special theater district fund.
The community board urged that the special fund be created quickly and that issues relating to the relocation of theatrical organizations evicted for new projects using the air rights should be addressed.
In addition to the $10-square-foot contribution to the fund, the developer has agreed to provide about 3,500 square feet of office space on Eighth Avenue at below-market rent for use by a few small theatrical companies.
The City Planning Commissioned unanimously approved the transfer of air rights from the Al Hirschfeld Theater (formerly the Martin Beck Theater) on West 45th Street and the Brooks Atkinson Theater on West 47th Street to 750 Eighth Avenue on the northeast corner at 46th Street. 750 Eighth Avenue is also known as 247 West 46th Street, which is the address the building now uses.
The new building, which was completed in 2008, has been designed by Costas Kondylis.
The Martin Beck Theater opened in 1924. In 1934, Katharine Cornell and Basil Rathbone starred in "Romeo and Juliet" there and the next year Burgess Meredith starred in "Winterset." In 1940, Paul Lukas starred in "Watch on the Rhine" and two years later Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontaine in "The Pirate." In 1946, the theater hosted "The Iceman Cometh" and in 1948 Robert Morley starred in "Edward My Son." Maureen Stapleton and Eli Wallach performed in "The Rose Tattoo" in 1951. In 1952, the theater hosted David Wayne and John Forsythe in "Teahouse of the August Moon" and in 1956 Charles Laughton directed himself and Cornelia Otis Skinner in "Major Barbara" and in 1959 Paul Newman, Geraldine Page and Bruce Dern performed in "Sweet Bird of Youth" and in 1965 Glenda Jackson was the star of "The Persecution and Prosecution of Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton Under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade."
SJP Properties also developed at the same time as the Platinum a condominium apartment building at 45 Park Avenue and it also acquired the Eighth Avenue east blockfront between 41st and 42nd Street from the Milstein family for the development of a commercial tower that would be across 41st Street from The New York Times building that was completed in 2007.
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