Recent ads for Santiago Calatrava's 80 South Street have been playing up the Met Museum angle (the architect's works are on display there through March 5). The art historian in us is quick to snicker at this, since museums seem just as likely to show unrealized projects as realized ones. Then, we read in the Downtown Express this rather direct exchange:
Community Board member: "But there’s a chance you won’t achieve the necessary sales, and the tower won’t be built?"
Sciame Development exec: "The short answer is, yes ... but marketing is going well, and it doesn’t look like that will happen.”Guess when you're building a dozen glass boxes in the sky, you might look foolish if you don't sell a few before they appear on the skyline. But that doesn't stop these brave purveyors of the future from tossing out April '06 as a start date and 30 months as a construction span. At $29 million for your basic model, that's around a month a million, if our math's correct.
· Calatrava tower construction on hold, seeking buyers [DowntownExpress]
· Calatrava's Tower O' Penthouses: Crank Up the Hype [Curbed]