Macklowe3 (again)

UPDATED: May 3, 12:35 p.m.: Thirteen years ago, Harry Macklowe had the idea to erect a glass cube in front of the GM Building. It became the entrance to an outrageously profitable Apple Store. Now, he is repeating the theme at 432 Park Avenue.On Tuesday, Macklowe Properties unveiled renderings for what it calls a “Park Avenue Cube” – a low-rise retail building adjacent (and connected) to its luxury condominium tower. Together, the cube and tower will hold 130,000 square feet of retail and office space.

A CBRE team of Andrew Goldberg, Richard Hodos, Matthew Chmielecki, and Joseph Hudson is handling the retail leasing, while CBRE’s Paul Amrich, Neil V. King III, and Patrice Meagher are handling office leasing.

A rendering of offices above the retail space at 40 East 57th Street

The cube features 6,600 square feet of retail space over two floors and will be lit up at night.

The cube will be connected to an additional 20,000 square feet of retail space in the neighboring condo tower via a 30,000-square-foot underground concourse. Above the tower’s retail space will be four office floors of 17,600 square feet each. Macklowe is also putting a marble outdoor plaza with a grove of birch trees next to the cube.

Macklowe is developing 432 Park – New York’s tallest residential tower – in partnership with fund manager CIM Group. In 2014, he bought the 1,396-foot tower’s retail space from CIM for $450 million in partnership with Qatari Investment Bank QInvest. In September, Saudi investor Hamza al Kholi sued Macklowe, claiming he was cut out of a joint venture agreement to buy the space.

Correction: An earlier version of this post incorrectly claimed that the office space will be in the cube. It will in fact be in the tower.