World Wide Holdings plans to erect a 59-story apartment tower on the west side of Second Avenue between 56th and 57th Street as part of the redevelopment of the High School of Art & Design and PS 59 at that location.
The new apartment tower will contain 320 rental and condominium apartments.
Under the terms of an agreement with the Educational Construction Fund of the New York City Department of Education, World Wide Holdings will build two new and expanded schools to replace the existing ones and the development will also contain about 170,000 square feet of retail space.
World Wide Holdings is leasing the site for 75 years and will make annual lease and PILOT (payments in lieu of tax) payments to the Educational Construction Fund that will cover the cost of both new schools, estimated to be $130 million, and generate additional revenues for other school capital projects.
The apartment tower and retail space and the 1,400-sear High School of Art and Design structures are being designed by Skidmore Owings & Merrill LLP and Ehrenkrantz
Eckstut & Kihyn is designed the new PS 59, which will be
expanded from 400 to 730 students.
The fist phase is expected to take three years and will involve the construction of the two new schools and during this phase PS 59 which is known as the Beekman Hill International School will be relocated to a new school facility in the boundaries of the existing school district. The second phase involves the mixed-use tower in which 20 percent of the apartments available for rent will be ¿affordable.¿ According to the agreement, another 30 units of affordable housing will be built off-site in the boundaries of Community Board 6.
The new development will also include community meeting places.
The two schools will frame an expanded, mid-block, open space.
The fund leases air rights over schools to developers who build new schools and are able to use the air rights not used by the schools for their own purposes.
World Wide Holdings, of which Victor Elmaleh, a fine painter and former national champion handball player, is a principal, has developed more than 1,800 apartments in Manhattan over the last decade and its projects include 50 Murray Street, 53 Park Place, 88 Greenwich Street and the Milan on 55th Street and Second Avenue. It was a partner in the development of World Wide Plaza on Eighth Avenue at 50th Street.
Last November, the Educational Construction Fund entered an agreement with the DeMatteis Organization to build a new intermediate school and 238,000 square feet of residential space at 1765 First Avenue.
The Educational Construction Fund was created in 1966 and it best known for its mixed-use developments such as the office-building/Norman Thomas High School on the southeast corner of Park Avenue and 34th Street and the apartment building/Robert F. Kennedy School on 88th Street between Park and Lexington Avenues.
This neighborhood, which is not far from Sutton Place, has witnessed considerable new development activity recently with three residential condominium buildings nearing completion on Eat 57th Street and three major residential condominium towers advancing on Second Avenue just a few blocks to the south.
The residential space in the new tower that will front on Second Avenue will be on the first two floors and two underground levels.
The rendering made available this week is a massing study of the complex at street-level and a spokesman for World Wide Holdings said that the architect is preparing more detailed renderings of the tower, which is one block south and a block east of One Beacon Court, the Bloomberg tower.
The new apartment tower will contain 320 rental and condominium apartments.
Under the terms of an agreement with the Educational Construction Fund of the New York City Department of Education, World Wide Holdings will build two new and expanded schools to replace the existing ones and the development will also contain about 170,000 square feet of retail space.
World Wide Holdings is leasing the site for 75 years and will make annual lease and PILOT (payments in lieu of tax) payments to the Educational Construction Fund that will cover the cost of both new schools, estimated to be $130 million, and generate additional revenues for other school capital projects.
The apartment tower and retail space and the 1,400-sear High School of Art and Design structures are being designed by Skidmore Owings & Merrill LLP and Ehrenkrantz
Eckstut & Kihyn is designed the new PS 59, which will be
expanded from 400 to 730 students.
The fist phase is expected to take three years and will involve the construction of the two new schools and during this phase PS 59 which is known as the Beekman Hill International School will be relocated to a new school facility in the boundaries of the existing school district. The second phase involves the mixed-use tower in which 20 percent of the apartments available for rent will be ¿affordable.¿ According to the agreement, another 30 units of affordable housing will be built off-site in the boundaries of Community Board 6.
The new development will also include community meeting places.
The two schools will frame an expanded, mid-block, open space.
The fund leases air rights over schools to developers who build new schools and are able to use the air rights not used by the schools for their own purposes.
World Wide Holdings, of which Victor Elmaleh, a fine painter and former national champion handball player, is a principal, has developed more than 1,800 apartments in Manhattan over the last decade and its projects include 50 Murray Street, 53 Park Place, 88 Greenwich Street and the Milan on 55th Street and Second Avenue. It was a partner in the development of World Wide Plaza on Eighth Avenue at 50th Street.
Last November, the Educational Construction Fund entered an agreement with the DeMatteis Organization to build a new intermediate school and 238,000 square feet of residential space at 1765 First Avenue.
The Educational Construction Fund was created in 1966 and it best known for its mixed-use developments such as the office-building/Norman Thomas High School on the southeast corner of Park Avenue and 34th Street and the apartment building/Robert F. Kennedy School on 88th Street between Park and Lexington Avenues.
This neighborhood, which is not far from Sutton Place, has witnessed considerable new development activity recently with three residential condominium buildings nearing completion on Eat 57th Street and three major residential condominium towers advancing on Second Avenue just a few blocks to the south.
The residential space in the new tower that will front on Second Avenue will be on the first two floors and two underground levels.
The rendering made available this week is a massing study of the complex at street-level and a spokesman for World Wide Holdings said that the architect is preparing more detailed renderings of the tower, which is one block south and a block east of One Beacon Court, the Bloomberg tower.
Architecture Critic
Carter Horsley
Since 1997, Carter B. Horsley has been the editorial director of CityRealty. He began his journalistic career at The New York Times in 1961 where he spent 26 years as a reporter specializing in real estate & architectural news. In 1987, he became the architecture critic and real estate editor of The New York Post.
6sqft delivers the latest on real estate, architecture, and design, straight from New York City.
