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A 34-story residential condominium tower with 100 apartments is planned at 309 Fifth Avenue between 31st and 32nd Streets.

The glass-clad building will have a low-rise base at the building line and a dramatic setback tower with two cantilevered and angled sections and "sawtooth" northwest and southwest corners with many balconies.

Ismael Leyva is the architect and renderings of the project appeared today on his website. His other projects include Plaza 57, Post Toscana, 15 Renwick Street, One Carnegie Hill and 785 Eighth Avenue.

309 Fifth Owners LLC, of which Haskel Cohen is a partner, is the developer.

The mid-block building, which utilizes development rights transferred from a qualified Inclusionary Housing site and air rights from 313 Fifth Avenue, will be 452 feet high, according to documents on file with the Department of Buildings.

It will have storage facilities and a "tenant pool" in the cellar, two apartments on the 4th floor, four apartments each on floors 5 through 8 and 11 through 13, three apartments on floors 9 and 10 and 14 through 28, two apartments on floors 30 to 32, and two duplex apartments on floors 33 and 34.

The area between 23rd and 33rd Street and Fifth and Madison avenues has recently witnessed substantial new residential activity.

A tall residential tower was erected at 425 Fifth Avenue at 38th Street, and another was recently completed at 325 Fifth Avenue, and plans were recently disclosed for a new mid-block tower at 224 Fifth Avenue across from the recent conversion of the former Gift Building at 225 Fifth Avenue. In addition a major tower is planned at 400 Fifth Avenue and construction is proceeding at the Sky House at 11 West 29th Street and the new owner of the former Metropolitan Life Insurance Company clocktower building on the southeast corner of Madison Avenue indicated it was proceeding with its residential conversion, which is half a block north of the construction site for Saya, another tall new residential tower at 22 East 23rd Street.

Calls to Mr. Leyva and Mr. Cohen from CityRealty.com today were not returned.
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.