WHO OWNS THE BLOCK
400 W. 57TH ST.
Stately red-brick Windermere in Hell’s Kitchen leaves a dubious history behind in renovation Owner’s pivot from hotel rooms to offices finally lands city’s blessing BY C. J. HUGHES
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475 W. 57TH ST. A condo developed in 1986 by Lewis Futterman that struggled to sell during the late-1980s recession, this 30-story, 178-unit affordable housing tower today is owned by the Actors Fund, a nonprofit service group for the entertainment industry. Apartments at the Dorothy Ross Friedman Residence are targeted toward seniors and those living with AIDS and who have income restrictions. The Related Cos., a major developer that early in its career specialized in syndicating tax credits for development projects, once had a stake in the property.
435 W. 57TH ST. Like many of the apartment buildings in the area, this whitebrick version, which has 275 units across 17 stories, dates to the mid-20th century, specifically 1962. Public records show it is owned by New Jersey firm South Park Estate Co., an affiliate of the development firm Punia Co. Charles Punia, a Polish immigrant real estate developer, appears to be the company’s founder. The most recent unit to lease in the building, last month, was a studio for $2,650. The building is worth $39.5 million, according to an assessment by the city, which tends to undervalue some properties; in 2020 it was worth $44 million, records show.
417 W. 57TH ST. 456 W. 57TH ST. Several turn-of-the-last-century brownstones hug this corner of the street, including this 5-story, 12-unit version, which is owned by Benjamin Aryeh, a Jewish immigrant from Iran who also owns small rental buildings on the Upper East Side and in Gramercy Park; another holding is the Manhattan-based Rafael Gallery, which deals in paintings and antique carpets. A three-bedroom at No. 456 rented in June for $3,850 a month, according to StreetEasy. A barber shop sits at its base. Like many buildings post-pandemic, the brownstone’s value seems to have taken a hit, dropping to just below $2 million in 2021, according to city estimates, from about $2.1 million the year before.
This 1886 brick-and-terracotta church once belonged to the strict Protestant order the Catholic Apostolics, founded in 1832 with the belief that Jesus would return to earth three years later. But after the last of the church’s leaders, Henry DuBois, died in 1949, the church sat unused for decades. The Lutheran church restored it in recent years, and the city declared the Gothic structure a landmark in 2007. The building, which has a 40-foot-tall nave and molded leaves around the doorways, is now for sale for $20 million. Marketing material suggests it could be turned into a home. Craig Dix, the agent with Berkshire Hathaway listing the property, had no comment.
442 W. 57TH ST. This 12-story, 118-rental-unit elevator building, Hanover House, was built in 1960 by George Rabinor, a lawyer and former high school English teacher who constructed 2,000 apartments across the country, according to a 2003 obituary. In mid-October there were no units for lease in the building. The last to rent, in September, was a one-bedroom, last listed at $2,895 a month. (Building rule: Only one pet under 40 pounds allowed.)
440 W. 57TH ST. For years the two-towered block-through hotel here, built in 1964, was a Holiday Inn, before it was reinvented under new ownership in 2017 as the boutique-ish Watson Hotel. But when the coronavirus crashed into New York, the 600-room property became one of more than 100 hotels to turn into homeless shelters, in the interest of stopping Covid’s spread. (The city picked up the tab for the rooms.) During the pandemic, a buyer came knocking, in the form of Midtown-based Yellowstone Real Estate Investments, which in April picked up the ground lease and the building for $190 million from sellers Woodridge Capital Partners, a Los Angeles firm, and BD Hotels, a boutique hotel investor. The property’s short run as a shelter came to an end in June, when city officials began relocating homeless residents to new apartments. But earlier plans to convert at least some of the units into apartments do not yet seem to have come to fruition. Isaac Hera, Yellowstone’s chief executive, could not be reached for comment.
400 W. 57TH ST. The Windermere, which was developed from nearly vacant land in 1881 at a cost of $350,000 and spent many of its early decades as a residence for single professional women (rents started at around $50 per month), is nearing a new chapter. The deep-red-brick building is planned to become an office building, after owner Mark Tress scored a raft of approvals. The 8-story building will also add another floor; 20 rental units, offered at below-market rates, will be accessed from the 57th Street side of the corner-berth building. Tress, an active investor in health care facilities around the U.S., began filing plans to alter the landmark structure, which is technically made up of three adjacent buildings, in 2013. The last time the building was occupied was 2007, when crumbling walls and a collapsing roof led to a vacate order.
BUCK ENNIS, GOOGLE MAPS
he Windermere, a deep-redbrick, Queen Anne–style apartment building that has languished at West 57th Street and Ninth Avenue in Hell’s Kitchen for decades, has taken a major step toward revival in recent months by snagging long-sought city approvals. But pushback from public officials over hotel rooms at the site (offices will go there instead) has scrambled cost projections and upset schedules, said developer Mark Tress, its owner. Tress added that Council Speaker Corey Johnson, whose district includes the Windermere, should bear particular blame for scotching the original proposal, which would have put a 174-room hotel in the 8-story structure’s upper floors. The Windermere will add 55,000 square feet of offices instead. Also in the building will be sidewalk-level stores and a top-floor restaurant. There will be 20 units of below-market-rate housing, which officials insisted on because of the building’s history of landlord harassment. In the early 1980s, under a previous owner, Alan B. Weissman, some doors were padlocked, others were removed, and prostitutes were allowed to move in to scare away tenants, according to a history from the Manhattan borough president’s office, which added that the property managers ultimately went to jail for their harassment. In 1985 a new owner, Toa Construction, took over. It paid $41,500 for the Windermere, according to a deed. But the Japanese company let the building deteriorate significantly, and by the late 2000s the last seven tenants had to flee after the Windermere was declared unsafe. Tress traveled to Japan to court Toa over several months and in 2009 finally snapped up the building for $13 million. (But Toa shelled out $1.1 million in city fines and $2.6 million in a tenant settlement.) After years of appearances before city officials, the city’s Landmarks Preservation and Planning commissions gave Tress their blessing this past spring. And a key City Council subcommittee approved it last month. But a scheduled vote by the full council passed earlier this month without action. A message left with Council Speaker Johnson’s office was not returned by press time. Though breathing new life into a building that’s been empty for more than a decade has won many supporters, adding seven floors of offices might seem somewhat risky. In September Midtown had an 18% availability rate, an increase from 14% in September 2020, according to the brokerage Colliers. But despite vacancies, unknown development costs and a long construction timeline, Tress seemed bullish: “There will always be a market for an office space in Midtown.” ■
4 | CRAIN’S NEW YORK BUSINESS | OCTOBER 25, 2021
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