Eric Schmidt won’t back gym at RFR’s 90 Fifth Avenue

Alphabet chairman had pledged to fund Peak Performance’s move

Peak Performance in the Flatiron District and Eric Schmidt
Peak Performance in the Flatiron District and Eric Schmidt

Guess it was too heavy a lift?

Eric Schmidt, executive chairman at Alphabet – which encompasses Google and affiliated companies – is backing out of a plan to fund Peak Performance’s relocation to 25,000-square-foot space at Aby Rosen and Michael Fuchs’ 90 Fifth Avenue in Chelsea.

The gym – which Schmidt attends along with other Alphabet employees, as well as celebrities such as Claire Danes, Anne Hathaway and Jimmy Fallon – signed a lease with the landlords in 2014, but Schmidt wasn’t revealed as a backer at the time. Asking rent was in the $70s per square foot, the New York Post reported.

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“Due to construction and other related issues, the project became no longer economically feasible.” a source familiar with the plans told the paper. “Eric wasn’t the sole investor in the project, but he was the primary investor.”

Peak Performance currently occupies 10,000 square feet at 54 West 21st Street in Flatiron.

RFR picked up a $20 million loan to renovate the 115,000-square-foot property back in 2014. The company had looked to sell the building, but chose not to after Forbes, a longtime tenant, defaulted on its debt payment. [NYP]Ariel Stulberg