All over town, stalled projects, commercial and residential, have sprung back to life.
This is wonderful news for the city as a whole, if not necessarily for developers who might still face rough going in finding office tenants or selling apartments.
But, also all over town, certain stalled projects appear little nearer to revival than they were one year ago. This is, of course, bad news, even if some developers and landlords are grateful for the temporary pause in the generation of new competition. (It’s a truism that real estate moguls tend to favor new construction only when they’re the ones doing the constructing.)
Leading the reborn field is Boston Properties’ 255 W. 55th St., the 1 million-square-foot office tower on Eighth Avenue.
As The Post’s Lois Weiss first reported, Mort Zuckerman‘s project will be home to law firm Morrison Foerster, which will take 180,000 square feet — less than Proskauer Rose would have taken there three years ago before it (or Boston) changed its mind, but enough for Boston to announce it will start construction this fall.
On West 47th Street’s diamond block, Extell is at last building its 34-story International Gem Tower — a credit to Extell chief Gary Barnett‘s tenacious commitment to a project that needed to be changed several times before its inception.
After a decade of site assemblage and air-rights purchases, Extell is also at last building its 80-story Park Hyatt Hotel/condo tower on West 57th Street between Sixth and Seventh avenues.
Meanwhile, the Durst Organization and Howard Fetner are planning a 40-story tower at long-dormant 855 Sixth Ave., which they bought in a foreclosure proceeding last year. Douglas Durst told us he’s “absolutely” confident of starting work early next year — the only question is whether the residential and retail project will also include a hotel.
And the sale offering of 400 Park Ave. S. at 28th Street via Studley’s Woody Heller, which we first reported last week, will likely lure a developer willing and able to build on what’s been mostly a vacant lot for years.
But too many sites have yet to find traction. Notwithstanding the Boston project, Eighth Avenue in Midtown was especially hard hit by the collapse of construction financing after the fall of Lehman Bros.
Among the worst eyesores is the northwest corner of Eighth Avenue and 46th Street, where Tribeach Holdings planned to put up a 39-story hotel. Midblock buildings were leveled and 301 W. 46th St. emptied of tenants. Nearly two years after Tribeach principal and architect William Fegan told us he still planned to go ahead, there’s no sign of progress.
Diagonally south across the avenue, a huge site jointly owned by Boston Properties and Related Cos. similarly awaits — after the developers knocked down several old buildings.
Downtown, Larry Silverstein isn’t ready yet to push the launch button on 99 Church St., a huge site near the World Trade Center where he plans a 912-foot tall tower including luxury condos and a new Four Seasons Hotel.
Some of the most demoralizing barren sites are relatively small, but in prominent locations. A while back, we lamented the demolition of 201 E. 57th St., a six-story building razed for a planned retail project to be known as the M&B Building.
Marx Realty & Improvement Co. President Claude Chandonnet got back to us to say that while the old building had “handsome elements,” it “became structurally outdated.” No doubt it was — but we’d love to see something go up to replace what came down.
And then, of course there’s the stall at a location both prominent and huge: the L-shaped parcel at Park Avenue between 56th and 57th streets that wraps around the office building at 450 Park Ave.
Despite reports here and elsewhere of incremental “progress,” owner CIM Group and its “adviser,” Harry Macklowe, would seem to have a long row to hoe before work actually begins — and clearing out retail tenants on 57th Street might not be the half of it.
Sources said CIM still is far from de ciding what to build, whether or not it can estab lish a longer 57th Street frontage; that unspecified lit igation could still be in the wings; and that the CIM-Macklowe working relationship has not gone entirely smoothly.