Rem Koolhaas's cantilevering 23 East 22nd Street near Madison Square Park and Herzog & de Meuron's castle of cubes at 56 Leonard Street in Tribeca will forever be linked. The buildings' plans were revealed around the same time, setting up quite the showdown, and the avant-garde designs were perhaps the last gasp of Manhattan's starchitecture-dominated luxury building boom. Now, it looks they have another thing in common: run-ins with the Reaper. Rumors have been flying for weeks about downsizing taking place at Koolhaas's 24-story sister building to the 60-story One Madison Park skyscraper (the two buildings would share a lobby and amenities), but the reality appears even more dire than just taking some Rem off the top.
Last week, the Department of Buildings approved an amendment to the building plan for 23 East 22nd Street, filed by architect John Cetra of Cetra/Ruddy, designers of One Madison Park. The document mentions changes to the number of floors and units. A scan of the slightly confusing Schedule A, which details the usage of each floor for both buildings, appears to show that 23 East 22nd Street (the "south tower") is now just 11 floors, and the touted screening room created in partnership with Hollywood talent agency CAA is nowhere to be found. A tipster tells us that before Koolhaas was brought in to design OMP's smaller sibling, Cetra/Ruddy had designed an 11-story building for the site. Our tipster also does a bit of speculating:
This could be wrong, but my understanding is that once apartments close, any change to the plan to implement the Rem tower would require approval by every single purchaser in the North Tower – Making it either impractical or expensive to implement the other tower.When we journeyed up to the $45 million penthouse at One Madison Park, we were told lower-floor units would close, well, about now. Slazer Development declined to comment. We'll have to keep an eye on the building's sales vortex to see if it gets sucked into any black holes of its own creation.
· 23 East 22nd Street coverage [Curbed]
· 23E22 [Official Site]
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