The Chetrit Group, Yair Levy, the head of YL Realty Partners, and Bonjour Capital, a manufacturer of jeans that is headed by Charles Dayan and Colby Marcos, have entered a contract to buy the former Siegel-Cooper Dry Goods Building at 620 Avenue of the Americas between 18th and 19th Streets from Jamestown, a German fund manager, for about $300 million.
The building, which is the most impressive of the former department stores in the Ladies' Mile Historic District, is a building with about 670,000 square feet of space that occupies about half the block between the Avenue of the Americas and Fifth Avenue and 18th and 19th Streets. It has seven floors beneath its cornice, which is surmounted by an elaborate center tower of a few stories.
The building has about 200,000 square feet of unused development rights and Dan Deutsch, executive vice president of YL Realty Partners, told CityRealty.com today that it has not yet decided what it will do with the air rights but has definitely "not ruled out" adding residential condominiums to the huge and very ornate building.
Because the building extends so far into the block, it is conceivable that the city's Landmarks Preservation Commission might not object to a tower addition in the middle of the block that would not visually interfere with the building's very impressive frontage on the avenue.
The building's major retail tenants include Bed & Bath & Beyond, Filene's Basement and T. J. Maxx.
Mr. Deutsch said that the contract should be finalized within about 90 days. He said that no architect for the project had yet been chosen.
The building, which has a tall, colonnaded entrance was erected in 1897 and was designed by DeLemos & Cordes, which also designed Macy's in 1902 and 130 Fulton Street.
Siegel-Cooper promoted itself as "the largest store in the world," a title subsequently taken over by Macy's.
The first-floor interior of the Siegel-Cooper store had included a replica in the middle of a fountain of Daniel Chester French's famous sculpture of the "Republic" that had been exhibited at the Chicago World's Fair in 1893 that introduced the concept of the "White City" and promoted grand Beaux-Arts-style architecture in this country.
The building is one block south and across the avenue from the former Hugh O'Neill dry goods store building at 650 Fifth Avenue that is being converted to residential condominiums by Elad Properties and is now surrounded in scaffolding. Two conical gilded turrets will be restored to the north and south ends of that building along the avenue.
The building, which is the most impressive of the former department stores in the Ladies' Mile Historic District, is a building with about 670,000 square feet of space that occupies about half the block between the Avenue of the Americas and Fifth Avenue and 18th and 19th Streets. It has seven floors beneath its cornice, which is surmounted by an elaborate center tower of a few stories.
The building has about 200,000 square feet of unused development rights and Dan Deutsch, executive vice president of YL Realty Partners, told CityRealty.com today that it has not yet decided what it will do with the air rights but has definitely "not ruled out" adding residential condominiums to the huge and very ornate building.
Because the building extends so far into the block, it is conceivable that the city's Landmarks Preservation Commission might not object to a tower addition in the middle of the block that would not visually interfere with the building's very impressive frontage on the avenue.
The building's major retail tenants include Bed & Bath & Beyond, Filene's Basement and T. J. Maxx.
Mr. Deutsch said that the contract should be finalized within about 90 days. He said that no architect for the project had yet been chosen.
The building, which has a tall, colonnaded entrance was erected in 1897 and was designed by DeLemos & Cordes, which also designed Macy's in 1902 and 130 Fulton Street.
Siegel-Cooper promoted itself as "the largest store in the world," a title subsequently taken over by Macy's.
The first-floor interior of the Siegel-Cooper store had included a replica in the middle of a fountain of Daniel Chester French's famous sculpture of the "Republic" that had been exhibited at the Chicago World's Fair in 1893 that introduced the concept of the "White City" and promoted grand Beaux-Arts-style architecture in this country.
The building is one block south and across the avenue from the former Hugh O'Neill dry goods store building at 650 Fifth Avenue that is being converted to residential condominiums by Elad Properties and is now surrounded in scaffolding. Two conical gilded turrets will be restored to the north and south ends of that building along the avenue.
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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