108 Leonard Street: Review and Ratings

Review of 108 Leonard Street by Carter Horsley

The very handsome and ornate, 13-story building fronts on Broadway between Leonard Street and Catherine Lane. 

It was formerly known as 346 Broadway. 

A New York City Landmark, the Broadway site had been owned since 1870 by The New York Life Insurance Company, which commissioned Steven D. Hatch for an eastern addition.  The architect died, however, in 1895 and was replaced by McKim, Mead & White.  According to the fifth edition of "The A.I.A. Guide to New York City" by Norval White, Elliot Willensky and Fran Leadon, its design for the site was "especially noteworthy" for "its wonderful Classical clock overlooking Broadway." 

The developers are the Pebbles Corporation and the Elad Group.  They bought the building from the Bloomberg Administration in 2013 for $160 million and are converting the building into 152 residential condominium apartments. 

In 2013, The Peebles Corporation acquired the single largest building ever sold by the City of New York, a late 19th-century Tribeca landmark. 

"This Renaissance-Revival palace in Lower Manhattan was completed in 1898," according to the Pebbles Corporation website, "and included a thirteen-story addition by the legendary architect architectural firm of McKim, Mead &White, whose designs for the first Madison Square Garden and Pennsylvania Station set the esthetic standard in turn-of-the-century New York. In 1987, the exterior and much of the interior spaces at 108 Leonard Street were designated as New York City landmarks." 

According to Wikipedia, "The building's prominent clocktower was topped with 33-foot tall, eight ton, sculpture made by Philip Martiny, who studied under Augustus Saint-Gaudens." 

"The piece consisted of four, 11-foot tall, crouching figures of Atlas, on whose shoulders rested a 15-foot diameter hollow globe, which was topped off with a 7-foot-tall eagle. The gigantic statue was removed in the late 1940s and has been lost ever since," the Wikipedia article continued. 

The building's conversion has been designed by SCLE. 

Jeffrey Beers International is the interior designer for the conversion and Howard L. Zimmerman Architects is responsible for the façade restorations.

The building is across from the attractive New York County Family Court building, one block north of the impressive and attractive Foley Square.

Bottom Line

A stunning, Italian-Renaissance-palazzo-style building in TriBeCa designed by McKim, Mead & White for the New York Life Insurance Company is missing many of the sculptural elements of its famous clocktower, but it is still a city landmark and is being converted, very lavishly, into residential condominiums.

Description

The building has a grand entrance with arches and columns and  leads to a grand, double-height lobby with twin staircases. 

It has rusticated façades and an entrance marquee on Leonard Street. 

The building, which has landscaping on ground floor ledges, has a large, vaulted driveway inside the building.

Amenities

The building has a landscaped roof deck with a fireplace, grilling stations, cabanas and pergolas, a fitness center with a large swimming pool, a large and very impressive wine cellar with dining room, a steam and sauna, a screening room, a billiards room with a wet bar, and a residents lounge with a fireplace.

Apartments

Ceiling heights range from 10 to 14 feet. 

Open kitchens come in either sand or ash palettes. 

Master bathrooms have black marble feature walls. 

Apartment 4N is a four-bedroom unit with 2,287 square feet with an entry foyer that leads to a 23-foot-long great room with an open kitchen with an island. 

Apartment 10P is a three-bedroom unit with 2,013 square feet with an entry foyer that leads to a 21-foot-long great room with an open kitchen with an island. 

Apartment 11H is a two-bedroom unit with 1,586 square feet with a 25-foot-long great room with an open kitchen with an island.

History

A December 1, 2017 article by Rebecca Baird-Remba at the commercialobserver.com reported that "a five-judge panel upheld a March 2016 decision that prevented developers Pebbles Corporation and Elad Group from converting the unique clock tower at 346 into a residential condominium, as part of a larger plan to renovate the former office building into...luxury condos." 

"A group of local historic preservation organizations - including Tribeca Trust, Save America’s Clocks and the Historic Districts Council - sued Peebles and the city in June 2015 in Manhattan Supreme Court," the article continued, "in an effort to block the conversion of the clock tower suite. The city’s Landmarks Preservation Commission issued a certificate of appropriateness in May 2015 that allowed the developers to renovate the clock tower, electrify its mechanism and turn it into a condo, which wouldn’t be accessible to the public. The local activist groups filed suit a couple months later and ultimately scored a victory in Manhattan state supreme court." 

The developers had planned to create a triplex penthouse around the clock tower that sits astride the building's Broadway frontage. 

“This important, well-crafted decision will help protect landmark properties from private residential development for decades to come," the article maintained, "and serves as a reminder that the NYC Landmarks Law is designed to preserve historic properties for the general public, not merely the ultra wealthy,” said Michael Hiller, the preservation groups’ attorney, in a statement." 

The article added that "When contacted for comment, the city Law Department responded, 'The court was divided in its ruling, 3-2. We are evaluating next steps.'”