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A mixed-use tower is planned by Tessler Development at 855 Sixth Avenue between 30th and 31st Streets.

Costas Kondylis is the architect of the tower which will have more than 240,000 square feet of retail space, according to Benjamin Fox, the president of Winnick Realty Group, a leading specialist in retail real estate that is also handling the retail space at another major new mixed-use tower designed by Mr. Kondylis at 885 Sixth Avenue on the southeast corner at 32nd Street overlooking Greeley Square.

The building at 855 Sixth Avenue, which also has the addresses of 101-113 West 30th Street and 106-8 West 31st Street, will have an unusual form with a setback tower rising from a low-rise retail base that cantilevers slightly on its south facade and has a setback on its east facade that also has a narrow northern section that angles outward and then inward.

The Winnick Realty Group website indicates that the project would be finished in January 2010.

The Department of Buildings issued a permit for a construction fence for the project November 15, 2007. It disapproved a new building permit for the project the same day and that plan called for a 30-story building with 197 apartments. The website for Pavarini McGovern, which shows the rendering at the right for the project, indicated today that the project would be 35 stories with 632,000 gross square feet and that the developer is seeking a silver LEED certification and that the building would have a garage and office space on floors 3 though 16.

Tessler Developments' other projects include 260 Park Avenue South, 240 Park Avenue South, the Windsor Park on the southwest corner of Sixth Avenue and 58th Street, 150 Nassau Street, and 66 Leonard Street. It planned a mixed-use tower at 400 Fifth Avenue with Lehman Brothers Holdings on the northwest corner at 36th Street, but sold that property in August, 2006.

Earlier this year, Joseph Chetrit had purchased this site from Baruch Singer for about $140 million, according to an article by John Koblin in the March 18, 2007 edition of The New York Observer.

Mr. Fox told CityRealty.com today that both 855 and 885 Sixth Avenue are significant additions not only to the enormous retail presence at Herald Square anchored by Macy's but also to the impressive redevelopment of the city's former flower district on the Avenue of the Americas above 23rd Street with residential towers with large retail bases.

The area to the west is in a very fluid state of flux with very ambitious plans for the former James Farley Post Office Building, the MTA's rail yards, the High Line elevated park, the Hudson Yards zoning district and an expansion/renovation of the Javits Convention Center.
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.