Extell Development is planning to erect a 20-story building with about 150 residential condominium apartments, 20 rental apartments and 100,000-square-feet of retail space on the eastern Lexington Avenue blockfront between 85th and 86th Streets.
It has commissioned Cook + Fox Architects to design the development, which will have several setbacks and an asymmetrical design that includes some indented balconies, and a projecting pier near the middle of each major fa?ade.
It will replace several undistinguished low-rise buildings that have housed a variety of small retail operations including a pet store, a candy shop, a Radio Shack and a deli as well as a large coffee shop that has been closed for a couple of years.
The intersection of Lexington Avenue and 86th Street is one of the busiest on the Upper East Side because it is an express subway stop and a major cross-town street. The cross-town street has been a major retail hub between Lexington Avenue and Second Avenue for the past few decades as redevelopment ended the strip?s long run as the center of German-American dance-halls and nightlife.
For a few years, Gimbel?s operating a large branch of its department store on the northwest corner of the intersection, but it subsequently was replaced by a large residential development whose retail spaces are now leased to Best Buy, Barnes & Nobles, Staples and Starbucks.
The Extell development site is owned mostly by the heirs of Sol Goldman, and they have leased the ground to Extell for the retail space and the rental apartments. Extell also negotiated with the Goldman heirs for the Stanhope Hotel site on the southeast corner of Fifth Avenue and 81st Street, which it is developing into condominium apartments.
According to an article today by Terry Pristin in The New York Times Gary Barnett, the head of Extell, ?hopes to begin demolition of the Lexington Avenue site in a few months,? adding that ?people are still living in one of the buildings along 86th Street and are protected by the city?s rent laws; they must be paid to leave or be relocated to other apartments.?
The same article reported that The Related Companies are planning to building a condominium apartment development a block to the east of the Extell site on the east side of Third Avenue between at 86th Street and it quoted Mark Perlbinder, ?who has contributed a building East 86th Street that used to house the Flaming Embers restaurant to the project,? as stating that the architect for the Related project is Robert A. M. Stern.
It has commissioned Cook + Fox Architects to design the development, which will have several setbacks and an asymmetrical design that includes some indented balconies, and a projecting pier near the middle of each major fa?ade.
It will replace several undistinguished low-rise buildings that have housed a variety of small retail operations including a pet store, a candy shop, a Radio Shack and a deli as well as a large coffee shop that has been closed for a couple of years.
The intersection of Lexington Avenue and 86th Street is one of the busiest on the Upper East Side because it is an express subway stop and a major cross-town street. The cross-town street has been a major retail hub between Lexington Avenue and Second Avenue for the past few decades as redevelopment ended the strip?s long run as the center of German-American dance-halls and nightlife.
For a few years, Gimbel?s operating a large branch of its department store on the northwest corner of the intersection, but it subsequently was replaced by a large residential development whose retail spaces are now leased to Best Buy, Barnes & Nobles, Staples and Starbucks.
The Extell development site is owned mostly by the heirs of Sol Goldman, and they have leased the ground to Extell for the retail space and the rental apartments. Extell also negotiated with the Goldman heirs for the Stanhope Hotel site on the southeast corner of Fifth Avenue and 81st Street, which it is developing into condominium apartments.
According to an article today by Terry Pristin in The New York Times Gary Barnett, the head of Extell, ?hopes to begin demolition of the Lexington Avenue site in a few months,? adding that ?people are still living in one of the buildings along 86th Street and are protected by the city?s rent laws; they must be paid to leave or be relocated to other apartments.?
The same article reported that The Related Companies are planning to building a condominium apartment development a block to the east of the Extell site on the east side of Third Avenue between at 86th Street and it quoted Mark Perlbinder, ?who has contributed a building East 86th Street that used to house the Flaming Embers restaurant to the project,? as stating that the architect for the Related project is Robert A. M. Stern.
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.
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