Cadence embraces Sorting House’s post office past

Hate going to the post office? Ever thought about living there?

Cadence Property Group hopes so. The developer is building a 30-unit luxury condo building, called the Sorting House, above the Radio City Station post office at 318 West 52nd in Hell’s Kitchen.

The building will incorporate gold-metal mailboxes in the lobby, which will be visible from the street. The vintage boxes will come from actual post offices.

“One approach was to pretend we are not on top of a post office; the other was to embrace it,” Howard Glatzer, the company’s president, told the New York Times.

The post office at the building will continue to function on its lower two floors. The developer will build a residential lobby in part of the ground floor, convert the third floor to residential and build two additional floors above that.

The building is part of the Special Clinton District, which restricts its possible height to 66 feet.

Average prices at the building are about $1,800 per square foot, with units priced betweeen $1 million and $3 million. Offers have been accepted on three units, Glatzer said.

Cadence bought the site for $3.9 million in mid-2014, according to city records. The condo project will cost $42 million, the Times reported, and is expected to be completed in 2017.

As part of the deal, the Postal Service agreed that it cannot lease the space to tattoo parlors, pornography shops and similar businesses. [NYT] – Ariel Stulberg