Columbus Square, 808 Columbus Avenue: Review and Ratings

Review of 808 Columbus Avenue by Carter Horsley

Description

PWV Acquisitions, of which Joseph Chetrit of the Chetrit Group and Laurence Gluck of Stellar Management are principals, bought the Park West Village residential complex between 97th and 100th Streets west of Central Park in 2000. In 2007, they disclosed plans to add five more residential buildings with about 710 apartments on the complex's western edge.

Park West Village had been erected in 1961 and was designed by S. J. Kessler & Sons. It consisted of seven red-brick slab buildings, four of which were condominiums and three of which were rentals.

The newer buildings that are clustered mostly about Columbus Avenue are known as Columbus Village. They are all set back on two-story bases, with four on Columbus Avenue and one on Amsterdam Avenue.

The first of the newer buildings was 808 Columbus Avenue, which has a Whole Foods as its major retail tenant. The building is 30 stories high, a dozen or so stories taller than the existing residential buildings in the complex, and has a garage.

Costas Kondylis & Partners was the architect for 808 Columbus Avenue, which has 359 apartments, and for three other new buildings across the avenue.

Whereas the balconied buildings of the original complex were typical "towers-in-a-park" structures of similar size and shape, the newer buildings differ in height, façade treatment and color and they have setbacks and corner windows.

The newer buildings have a unified architecture style on Columbus Avenue and helped transform the surrounding area, which is not far from two taller residential towers on Broadway between 99th and 100th Streets.

The newer buildings on the east side of Columbus Avenue have covered walkways between them to provide easy access to the avenue from the rest of the complex to the east. The covered walkways also serve to create a continuous, two-story high building wall between 97th and 100th Streets on that side of the avenue.

There are subway stations nearby on 96th Street and Central Park West and Broadway and there is good cross-town bus service on 96th Street.