The Saya Cometh, but Just How Big?

1.

Anyone know if it is true that the 60th floor with really be the new McDonalds? I hear it will be their flagship store with waiters in tuxes.

2.

NO! This is disastrous! Don't you know that now no one will be able to get a clear view of the Met Life tower from downtown? That's one of the most beautiful buildings on the skyline, and to obscure it in many of its best viewing angles - blasphemy! How could they allow this?

3.

If you don't have a couple of million in the bank and earn at least 500k per year, you really should leave manhattan. Otherwise you will be renting that crappy apt. forever. Only the very rich will own property here.

4.

Yes, stop all development in New York immediately. We could use a return to the glory days of the mid 70's fiscal crisis. Death to development.

5.

Bubble boy you may be right. The best and the brightest all want to live in NYC. The last decade the rich have become tremendously richer. Everyone one else is just treading water.
I'm pasting a recent entry from "True Gotham", I think it sums it up preety well.
Posted on August 31, 2006
Absence Makes the Heart Grow Snobbish
I LOVE Manhattan.

Oh my. I can't believe I said that!

Let me explain. The cooler than usual real estate market this summer has afforded me the luxury of spending some time outside of Manhattan and for the first time in my life I think I'm actually becoming one of those "city" snobs.

I grew up much the opposite, in a working class neighborhood outside Baltimore city (half suburban/half urban). People in that neighborhood were not snobs at all. I moved to New York City in the summer of 1989 having never even visited before.

I'm not ashamed to admit that "the city" petrified and intimidated me at first. I lived in a sublet in Hell's Kitchen where people were shooting heroin and prostitutes were on the street in broad daylight.

Boy has the city and my feelings for it come a very long way. Today I was driving back from a business meeting in central New Jersey. The setting was aesthetically similar and equally void of culture as the place where I grew up. Did it make me long for home? Why yes it did. But not the home of my childhood.

Manhattan has been my home for the past 17+ years and will likely be my home until the day I die. You can have the suburban lifestyle and I will visit the beach or rural areas when I hunger for that, but there is no better place in the world to call home than New York City. The energy, the creativity, the sophistication, the people (who definitely get a bum rap outside of "the city"), and the everyday conveniences it provides me and my family are most appreciated when I am without them. For this and a plethora of other reasons, I can't see why anyone would want to live anywhere else.

6.

It is going to be 60. It was originally planned as 47.

7.

Will someone please count the number of floors on the picture. My ADD is too bad to do it myself.

8.

It looks like a good rendering and it will be a great addition to the skyline. My only issue is that its only 60 stories.

9.

I've crunched all the numbers. My conclusion, Prices for apts in Manhattan have to go down, because only very rich people can afford to buy today.

10.

Maybe DDDB can have a sister-organization called "Develop Don't Destroy Madison Park" and they can protest that this building is too ambitious. Maybe they can claim that nothing built in the MP area can be taller than Shake Shack.

11.

The lowest price apt in this project starts at 1 Million dollars. There must be alot of rich people out there because There seems to be alot of new developments on the market where the cheapest apt starts at 1 Million.

12.

Is it one of the funny math things where there are 47 floors, but the build is as tall as a 60 story building with "regular" floor heights, so they say 60 stories?

13.

There are ALOT of rich people globally. Manhattan is a luxury brand, and like PRADA and GUCCI its not meant for average people. Manhattan luxury real estate is a global market, and thus more immune from weakness in the American housing sector. Problem though is as the second home market crashes in Colorado and Florida, then the rich may be less likely to pay a Manhattan premium.

14.

What I get a kick out of is that this block in particular is the favorite haunt of the denziens of the local methadone clinic. The (former) McDonalds and the Dunkin Donuts next door are/were favorite hangout spots and there's always something "interesting" going on on the street. Sounds like a great place to buy a million-dollar condo!

15.

And, don't forget all the homeless down the street at the church between 6th and 7th who roam on over to the 6 train daily. HA!

This has got to be the most ridiculous development yet. Even sillier than 111 CPN.

16.

for those of you who still think NYC is different - NY RE in 2008 will certainly be in a different climate than 2006.

I am willing to bet this proposed tower will convert to rentals by 2009 due to lack of sufficient sales.

An imploding RE market in Cali will have a resounding effect on not only the US economy but globally. The deflation train will be hard to stop now that its started.

From today's MarketWatch:

NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- U.S. stocks fell Wednesday on concern the Federal Reserve might interpret a report showing a bigger-than-expected rise in labor costs as a signal it may need to raise interest rates further to choke off inflationary pressures in the economy.

I still believe Bernanke will pause or lower rates by the end of the year, but the above would imply obvious pressure for him to do otherwise.

With the US potentially raising rates by year-end, and the Euro CBs raising rates - the money supply will contract. With money supply contracting globally, people will be less likely to finance the current status quo.

The number of idle rich with enough liquidity to consume all current available and proposed apartment inventory will not be enough to keep prices at their current ridiculous level.

Anyone who is *rich* enough to finance the purchase of a +$1mil apartment is still job dependent, and that job is dependent on a viable economy. An economy heading into a recession with the potential for a global depression is not my definition of "viable."

By 2008 through 2012, people will be more concerned with keeping their jobs than buying RE.

17.

^ bah. the dow just set its all time record.

also, the idle rich of the world will be more than enough to keep the supercharged housing market in manhattan burning along despite any local usa housing bust.

as said above, the city is a more a chic brand than ever for foreigners.

18.

Is it true that Steve McArdle is going to market this for Cantor Pecorella?

Have not seen that creep since 555 West 23rd Street. He was the FBI informant, remember?

http://www.prisonplanet.com/full_horror_of_wtc_attack_caught_on_tape.htm

19.

ok, this building is going up RIGHT infront of our apt. building and blocking our view down madison avenue, so i dont think any of you should be complaining.

And anyways, THIS IS NEW YORK....this stuff happens all the time and a real new yorker would know.