Photo: CityRealty Rendering of JD Carlisle and Fosun’s proposed condo project at 30th Street and Madison Avenue (highlighted by red arrow).
A plan to jack a new condo tower 155 feet above its neighbors has sparked a millionaires’ catfight over views, values and city building regulations.
Manhattan developer JD Carlisle, partnering with Shanghai investor Fosun Group, is using a new and increasingly common trick in the architectural playbook, effectively putting its building on stilts and vaulting the property over the roofline of a neighboring hotel to give each of its apartments a view of the New York City skyline.
The first floor of apartments in the tower at 30th Street and Madison Avenue will be at least 155 feet above the street, and the building will top out at 760 feet—more than 70 stories high by conventional measures. The apartments will reach that level by resting on a series of three cavernous floors with ceilings averaging 44 feet high. These floors will house ventilation and other systems, and will themselves be perched on a 23-foot base.
That has residents of a conventional 55-story condo building, called the Sky House Condominium, up in arms. Their views would be marred by the new tower.
Planning expert George Janes, who’s been hired by Sky House, noted the height-raising design in an April 25 letter to the Department of Buildings.
“The proposed building has an extremely large ‘structural void,'” he wrote in a complaint being reviewed by the department. Janes wants the city to force a redesign of the tower on a number of grounds, including the mechanical space.
“Right above the base, you have essentially a monolith that goes up to 15 stories,” Janes said. “This violates all kinds of urban design standards: You want eyes on the street; you want windows and transparency to give the street vibrancy.”
Fosun declined to comment; JD Carlisle did not respond to a request for comment by press time.
Building on stilts is the latest method developers are using to raise the height of their residential projects. At 220 Central Park South and 520 Park Ave., mechanical spaces are housed at the bases of the buildings on floors with ceilings at least 20 feet high. Raising the ceiling height doesn’t count against the square footage that a developer is allotted, and allows them to create a pedestal on which to stack more high-floor apartments whose expansive views command higher prices.
“Developers are making a bet that the premium they will get by moving the units upward is going to outweigh the cost,” said a New York developer who’s not associated with the Madison Avenue project. “It’s a simple bet—and it’s probably a safe one.”
For Fosun and JD Carlisle’s building, the reason behind the large mechanical space may be tied to the next-door Chandler Hotel. According to Janes’ letter, the proposed building is too close to the hotel to legally allow apartments, which require a certain amount of outside light and air. Rather than shrink or change the condo tower’s shape to make enough room, the developers may have decided to simply raise the units above the hotel and avoid the problem altogether.
The Sky House condo association, which retained Janes and the law firm Marcus Rosenberg & Diamond, could not be reached for comment as to why it began scrutinizing Fosun and JD Carlisle’s blueprints. But an advertisement on listings website StreetEasy indicates that units there boast “sensational views of the city.” In April, a two-bedroom apartment at Sky House listed for $3.7 million went into contract.
Janes’ objections have shut down other high-profile luxury condo developments recently. In May, the city stopped work on developer DDG’s East 88th Street condo tower after the planner noted that a rear yard had been carved out of the building’s footprint against city code so DDG could add more space at the top of its building.
