A rendering of the gem tower

From the March issue: Midtown is hardly the loveliest part of Manhattan, and few parts of Midtown are quite as unlovely as the stretch of 47th Street between Fifth and Sixth avenues. This corner of creation is known worldwide as the Diamond District and, with the possible exception of the city of Antwerp in Belgium, it’s home to the biggest diamond emporium in the world.

Indeed, if you’ve been on this dreary street at all, there’s a good chance you’ve been buying or selling gems. The entire block is a hive, an ecosystem in which diamond buyers and stone cutters interact with wholesalers, shippers and security firms to create New York City’s fabled diamond trade. [more]

Today's topping-out ceremony at the International Gem Tower (credit: Ari Burling)

A group of leading officials from Extell Development and Tishman Construction, as well as hundreds of construction workers, gathered at the site of the International Gem Tower today to celebrate the building’s topping out, Tishman announced today. [more]

From left: A U.S. visa, the International Gem Tower and a rendering of the Barclays Center at Atlantic Yards

With financing conditions extremely tight, New York City developers have increasingly turned to the EB-5 program, which gives foreign investors visas in exchange for investment in job-creating projects, to land funding for their projects. But according to the New York Times, developers are bending the rules to make their projects more attractive for those foreign funds, and taking money away from other projects that need the funding.

The minimum investment to qualify for a visa under the program has always been $1 million — but the threshold is reduced to $500,000 if the project is in a rural area or a community where unemployment is 50 percent greater than the national average. [more]

From left: Stuart Romanoff, executive vice president at Cushman & Wakefield, and a rendering of the International Gem TowerExtell Development President Gary Barnett has returned to his original plan for the $750 million International Gem Tower in Midtown, the New York Post reported, as he has decided to lease the top floors to traditional office tenants.

The 34-story, 745,000-square-foot tower planned for completion late next year at, 50 West 47th Street, will get a separate entrance at 55 West 46th Street for tenants of the top 14 floors to use as traditional office space. The first 20 floors are comprised of 400,000 square feet of condominiums dedicated for jewelry industry use. They are about 65 percent sold with an asking price of about $1,000 per square foot, the Post said. [more]

Office condominium sales are on the rise in Manhattan, with particular appeal to foreign business owners, Crain’s reported.
Indeed, 80 percent of sales at Manhattan’s 88 office condos are to
foreign buyers. Office condo sales, which peaked at $235 million in
2008, and dropped to around $150 million in both 2009 and 2010, are on
the rise as investors, particularly in Europe, look to stash their cash.
The average asking price at a Manhattan office condo has rebounded to
$531 per square foot, though before the recession, the average asking
price was $879 per square foot. Comments

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545 West 25th Street, 139 Centre Street and 50 West 57th Street

The decision to rent or to buy isn’t one that only affects home-seekers. It’s also a dilemma that businesses face. And increasingly, New York businesses want to buy their office space, which has bumped up the demand for office condominiums. According to the New York Times, much of the shift is due to cultural preferences. While many American businesses in the city prefer to lease office space to accommodate future growth, changing market conditions and other factors, foreign businesses favor purchases. Margarette Lee, a principal at New York-based developer Youngwoo & Associates, whose founder hails from Korea, said that the Asian businesses, in particular, covet office condos. [more]

Extell Development is following through with its plans to begin vertical construction at the site of its future International Gem Tower with or without a construction loan. The Wall Street Journal spotted workers erecting the 34-story tower’s steel base yesterday, and noted that despite its lack of construction financing, it is now one of just two New York City sites where large-scale office buildings are going up. (The other being, of course, the World Trade Center). According to Raizy Haas, Extell’s senior vice president, the Diamond District project, on 47th Street between Fifth and Sixth avenues, will be complete by the end of next year. [more]

From left: Extell’s Gary Barnett, Dov Hertz as well as the site at 153 West 21st Street

Just two weeks after unloading a development site in Soho, Gary Barnett’s Extell Development sold four brownstones comprising a single parcel in Chelsea at 153 West 21st Street, to Alfa Development Management for $17.14 million.

Alfa Development, based in the Flatiron District, went into contract in December and closed on the sale March 2, city property records published today show.

The row of four-story brownstones with 58,084 square feet of development rights, sold for $300 per square foot, according to figures from PropertyShark.com.
[more]

Extell Development plans to start going vertical with its 34-story International Gem Tower building in March with or without a construction loan, vice president Raizy Haas told the Wall Street Journal. According to Haas, the developer’s equity partners in the project have agreed to pony up the funds for what she called a “calculated risk” — a risk that many lenders have shied away from in recent years. The Diamond District commercial condominium currently has 150,000 square feet worth of commitments from buyers, which works out to around 20 percent of the building. [more]

From left: Extell’s International Gem Tower, Gary Barnett and 580 Fifth Avenue

Construction on Extell Development’s 34-story International Gem Tower condominium, on West 47th Street between Fifth and Sixth avenues, is on hold until Jan. 1, when Extell says it will “go vertical,” the New York Post reported. Meanwhile, 580 Fifth Avenue at the corner of 47th Street, is vying to be the center of the global diamond trade. Though Extell’s tower was recently approved as a Foreign Trade Zone by the U.S. Department of Commerce, 580 Fifth Avenue — at 400,000 square feet — is 95 percent leased, while the Gem Tower’s 750,000 square feet remain frozen at sidewalk level. [more]