Rafael Viñoly’s Upper East Side condo on stilts cleared to rise

Rafael Viñoly Architects’s Upper East Side “condo on stilts” has been cleared to move forward by the city’s Department of Buildings, Crain’s reports. In November last year, a group of Upper East Side residents lodged a complaint over the proposed development at 249 East 62nd Street saying that building was using a “mechanical void” to bolster its height.

Some developers across the city have been accused of employing this tactic—to create a mechanical section at the base or in the middle of the building—that boosts the height of the overall structure and provides better views for apartments. Nomad residents pushed back against a 760-foot skyscraper on these grounds, and Upper East Side residents were looking to do the same with the Viñoly tower.

However the DOB ruled at the end of last month that the developers, Real Estate Inverlad and Third Palm Capital, could move forward because the existing zoning code did not place restrictions on ceilings heights of mechanical spaces. The DOB does however two other unspecified issued with the structure, according to Crain’s—the developers won’t be able to move forward before those are fixed.

As plans stand right now, the building will rise to 32 stories. There will be retail and residential units until floor 12. The mechanical portion will be located on floors 13 through 16, as will the building’s amenities on floor 15. There would be additional units between floors 17 and 29, and three mechanical floors on top.

• City green-lights UES tower’s height-boosting gambit [Crain’s]
• Is this what Rafael Viñoly’s Upper East Side condo on stilts will look like? [Curbed]
• Upper East Siders challenge NYC’s latest ‘building on stilts’ [Curbed]