285 Lafayette Street: Review and Ratings

Review of 285 Lafayette Street by Carter Horsley

The large and impressive, 10-story-high building at 285 Lafayette Street between Jersey and Prince Streets in SoHo has a very handsome red-brick base with two-story high rusticated limestone piers with a two-story rooftop expansion that is mostly setback.

The developers of the conversion of this former commercial building spent about three years geting approvals from the City Planning Commission to remap the site and to add four flours to the existing six-story, non-fireproof building.  The solution was to erect a fireproof building over the non-fireproof structure.

The building, whose former address was 271 Mulberry Street, has 21 apartments and the original building was erected in 1912.  The building was expanded in 1999. 

The developer was Allied Partners Inc., of which Eric Hader is a principal.

Costas Kondylis Interiors designed the interiors.  WYS Design Partnership Architects were the architects.

Bottom Line

This impressive and large red-brick masonry building just to the south of the very famous Puck Building on Lafayette Street has very large loft apartments and is very convenient to SoHo and NoHo.

Description

This building is just to the south, across the very narrow Jersey Street, from the famous Puck Building on the southeast corner of Lafayette Street and Houston Street.

The older base of the building has arched windows on the 5^th and 6^th floors and its façade has some ornamental tie-backs.

According to an article in New York Construction News, "Because the non-fireproof columns could not be used, the structural engineer devised a system of steel beams hung from tubular grillage spanning up to 70 ft. between existing masonry walls."

"To set the beams in place and comply with imposed height limitations," the article continued, "it was necessary to remove the existing roof structure. Water tanks providing sprinkler, standpipe and domestic services were replaced with a series of pumps placed in a subcellar. The existing fifth floor was then covered with a modified bitument roof and temporary drainage was provided to protect the existing tenants. A new seventh floor construction served as a fire separation and as a platform upon which a new four-story brick and block-bearing wall structure was erected."

The building has about 30,000 square feet of retail space which has been leased to the ew York Public Library and Polo Ralph Lauren.

Amenities

The building has a landscaped roof garden, a 24-hour concierge, a full-time doorman, private storage, a laundry and is pet-friendly.

Apartments

The eight penthouses in the new section of the building have wood-burning fireplaces and 26-foot-high ceilings. 

All the apartments have Brazilian hardwood flooring, polished nickel vanities, wine coolers and six-foot bathtubs and the building’s 800-square-foot lobby has a 10-foot-long white onyx countertop.

Apartment 2B is a three-bedroom unit with 4,060 square feet and 11-foot-3-inch high ceilings, Brazilian cherrywood flooring, wood beams, cast-iron columns.  It has a 48-by-47-foot living/dining room adjacent to a 15-foot-long, pass-through kitchen and a 13-foot-long media area.

Apartment 3A is a three-bedroom unit that has a 40-foot-square living/dining area with a 15-foot-long pass-through kitchen that leads to a 14-foot-long storage area and a 12-foot-long office area.

Apartment 4E has an 8-stided entry foyer that leads, on one side, to a 20-foot-long dining room next to a 22-foot-long kitchen with a 12-foot-long breakfast room, and, on the other side, to a 23-foot-long media room/library next to a 21-foot-long corner living room.  The unit has two bedrooms.

Apartment 5D has a 43-foot-long living area fronting on Mulberry Street with a 16-foot-long open kitchen with an island and two bedrooms. 

Apartment 6AB has an entry into a home office that leads to a gallery that gives way to a large corner living area with an open pass-through kitchen with an island and a breakfast room.  The apartment has three bedrooms.

Penthouse D has 3,375 square feet of interior space and 1,010 feet of terraces and direct access to the building’s roof deck.  The living room has 23 foot-high ceilings and a wood-burning fireplace.  The upper level has two bedrooms and a skylit gym.

Penthouse A8 is a triplex that has a 10-foot-wide entry foyer that leads to a 16-foot-wide open kitchen with an island next to a 20-foot-long open dining area that adjoins a 32-foot-long living room that opens onto a long terrace.  A lower level contains two bedrooms, a library and a 42-foot-long “master terrace.”  An upper level has a family room and two terraces.

History

This building was once the Hawley & Hoops candy factory.

The building’s artists-residents living in the building at the time of its expansion and conversion, put up $700,000 for their 35,000 square feet in the 100,000-square-foot building.  According to an October 18, 1998 article by Alan S. Oser in The New York Times there are also “chipping in abut $500,000 more as their share of the construction and other costs associated with legalizing the building for residential use.”

According to the article, the building had “a long history as a rehabilitation candidate,” adding that “once it was owned by Norman Ferber, a Manhattan real estate investor.”  “Along with other owners of financially distressed loft properties in lower Manhattan in the 1970s, he brought in sculptors, painters, photographers and other artists on commercial leases, and they altered their space to live in them.  Such tenants wee given legal occupancy rights under the left law.  Another owner, Fred Deutsch, took over in the mid-80s, and obtained an acquisition and development firm.  He moved into the building and elaborately renovated 6,000 square feet of space for this residence on the fourth and fifth floors….Mr. Deutsch approached Allied Partners in late 1994 about the building’s financial plight.   Its loan was in default and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation had taken over the assets of the bank that made it.  Allied, along with two longtime New York City real estate investors, Lawrence Friedland and Arnold Penner, acquired the mortgage.  For two years Mr. Hadar and his lawyer, Norman Marcus, worked on a rezoning needed for the redevelopment.  By the time construction was ready to start, Allied had bought out its financial partners and Mr. Deutsch, whose former apartment is part of the reconstruction.”

The project was successful when David Bowie, the rock star, bought one of the penthouse units and Patrick McEnroe, the tennis player, purchased an apartment.

Other purchasers included IBM heiress Olive Watson, the owner of Tootsi Plohound, Eric Nederlander of the theater family, and Lachlan and Sarah Murdoch of the communications family. (Mr. Murdoch subsequently acquired a six-story building at 11 Spring Street, that he later sold.)

Eric Hadar, the principal of Allied Partners, was profiled in a February 12, 2001 article by Andrew Rice in The New York Observer:

The article by Mr. Oser said that Mr. Hadar’s father, Richard Hadar, was formerly president of American Direct Industries, which was sold to Bankers Trust in 1989.  The article said that Allied Partners acquired the Studio 54 Building at 254 West 54^th Street when it was in receivership in 1994.

Allied Partners would subsequently acquire 50 West 40th Street, 770 Lexington Avenue, 568 Broadway, and, in partnership with Boston Properties, Citicorp Center, and, in partnership with partners of Brown Harris Stevens, 48 Wall Street.  It also shares a controlling interest in Terra Holdings.

Allied Partners was founded in 1993.  Eric Hadar graduated from Hobart College and got a MBA from Columbia University.