135W52, 135 West 52nd Street: Review and Ratings

Review of 135 West 52nd Street by Carter Horsley

This mid-block, 47-story apartment building at 135 West 52^nd Street between Sixth & Seventh Avenues was converted in 2014 from the Flatotel by The Chetrit Group and Clipper Equity.

When completed in 2015, it will contain 109 condominium apartments.

Cetra/Ruddy is the architect for the conversion.

Bottom Line

A handsome, mid-block tower with a stunning entrance that is convenient to Rockefeller Center, the Theater District and the Museum of Modern Art.

Description

The building retains its original form although it has been reclad and had a lighting installation by Thierry Dreyfus installed in the center of the façade running almost the full-height of the building.

According to a June 13, 2014 article in The New York Times by Julie Satow, Mr. Dreyfus’s 423-foot installation will be encased inside a casing attached to the front of the building.  The article noted that Mr. Dreyfus was the lighting designer “who lit up the Grand Palais in Paris and the Chateau de Versailles.”

It also has dramatically changed its base with a new, 35-foot-high lobby with walnut wood-paneled walls and a White Onxy stone wall with nickel framing and a large chandelier with cast bronze buds with LED-illuminated glass drops. 

The building’s original façade design was very handsome with a large reflective-glass fenestration grid with setbacks and some balconies on the east side of the tower near the top.

The new façade has a 7-story base of Dark Pearl granite beneath a gunmetal gray and bright stainless steel façade punctuated by five set-back terraces.

Amenities

The building has a 24-hour doorman and concierge and a 12,000-square-foot residents’ club on the building’s lower level and 7^th floor.  The building will have a 75-foot-long swimming pool and a fitness center, a golf simulation groom, a private screening room with a fireplace and an outdoor lounge. The ground floor will have a restaurant.

Apartments

Some apartment ceilings will be about 10 feet high.

Apartments will have 5-inch-wide plank rift sawn white oak floors and 7-foot-high walnut entry doors bordered in White Onyx and Miele washers and dryers.

Some apartments will have gas fireplaces with Bianco Puro marble slab surrounds and some will also have Rimadesio glossy white back-painted glass paneled sliding walls.

Kitchens will have Dada Italian walnut and white back-painted glass cabinetry with a bronze satin mirror backsplash, Calacatta Vision polished marble countertops, Franke professional series stainless steel undermount sink, Miele induction countertops, ovens, dishwashers and integrated panel side-by-side refrigerator and freezers.

Some units will have Dada high-glass white lacquer islands with polished Calacatta Gold marble tops, Miele wine refrigerators and ovens.

Master baths will have Siberian white polished marble tile walls with honed Siberian White tile flooring, radiant heated floors, and recessed medicine cabinets with mirrors.

Apartment A on the 27^th through the 29 floors is a three-bedroom unit with an 8-foot-wide entry foyer that leads to a 31-foot-long great room with an open kitchen and an island.

Apartment B on the 18^th through the 21^st floors is a two-bedroom unit with a wide entrance gallery that leads to an 18-foot-wide great room with an open kitchen and an island.

Apartment 32A is a two-bedroom unit with an 8-foot-long entry foyer that leads to a long gallery and a 28-foot-long great room with an open kitchen and an island.

Apartment C on the 18^th through the 21^st floors is a two-bedroom unit with an 8-foot-long entry foyer that leads to a 10-foot-long library and a 21-foot-long great room with an open kitchen and an island.

History

The tower was erected in 1985 by Progress Properties and designed by Rafael Vinoly, the architect of the 1,398-foot-high residential tower under construction by Harry Macklowe at 432 Park Avenue.

It was planned to be a mixed-use tower with commercial tenants on the lower 7 floors beneath 178 condominium apartments and a swimming pool and  athletic facilities on the 46-floor. The building was then known as the Manhattan and its address was 153 West 52^nd Street, just to the east of the Sheraton Centre hotel.

The building, however, did not open and its developer, Jacopo Finkielstain went to prison for bank fraud and the building was empty for six years until it was acquired by Euro-American Lodging, a partnership that included Flatotel, a Paris concern that runs apartment hotels, in 1990 and converted the building to a 288-room hotel called the Flatotel.

The tower has a through-block arcade to 53^rd Street that was part of a city plan to create a 6-block-long, mid-block pedestrian passageway in the west 50s because the long blocks between Sixth and Seventh Avenues.

It was subsequently acquired by the Alexico Group of which Izak Senbahar is a principal and was a prominent developer in the West Village and the Upper East Side as well as a developer of 56 Leonard Street, the Herzog & de Meuron tower that will rest, partially, on a stainless steel egg-shaped sculpture by Anish Kapoor.

A joint venture of the Rockpoint Group, the Atlas Capital Group LLC, and the Procaccianti Group bought the building’s debt in 2010 along with the Alex Hotel at 205 East 45^th Street and foreclosed on the Alexico Group to get control of the properties.

In 2013, the Rockpoint, Atlas and Procaccianti interests sold the Flatotel to Mr. Chetrit and David Bistricer for $180 million, according to some news reports.