Gamma Real Estate Files Building Permits for Soaring Sutton Place Tower

By CityRealty Staff | From Future New York Friday, December 30, 2016

Google Earth depiction of Foster + Partners' 3 Sutton Place tower

Earlier this December, N. Richard Kalikow’s Gamma Real Estate picked up the distressed Sutton Place development site at 428-432 East 58th Street for $98 million in a foreclosure auction. Now just three weeks later, the firm has filed an application with the city’s Department of Buildings to construct a soaring 67-floor, 389-unit residential tower on the mid-block property. The project, also known as 3 Sutton Place, has ruffled the feathers of neighborhood locals due to its near-supertall height. If construction is approved, it will become Midtown’s tallest residential building east of Park Avenue

The new application lists local firm the Stephen B. Jacobs Group as the architects and details the development as an 844-foot tall building with 389 units from floors 2 through 66. Considering the application has been filed just 3 weeks after the developer’s purchase, it’s likely the plans are preliminary. Gamma president Jonathan Kalikow tells The Real Deal that the filed building plans are to “safeguard the property” while they weigh their options.

The site’s previous owner, Joseph Beninati’s Bauhouse Group, planned a soaring 950-foot tall skyscraper, designed by Foster + Partners, that would provide unobstructed views in all directions to the apartments that eclipse the 490-foot roof-line of The Sovereign next door. Soon after hearing of the plans, residents of the Sovereign and the surrounding community called on local politicians to downzone the mid-rise neighborhood and enforce a height limit of 260 feet.

NYC skyscrapers, Midtown towers, NYC architecture, Lord Norman Foster

Foster + Partner's 3 Sutton Place design; Bauhouse Group

However, City Planning officials have shown little inclination regarding rezoning. Last year, City Planning Director Carl Weisbroad explained in a letter that the skyscrapers, rising throughout Midtown, actually help preserve many of the older buildings by consuming their unused air rights. This, in turn, results in a more interesting streetscape, pedestrian experience and “an incredibly dynamic, iconic skyline that is the envy of the world.”