SL Green will redevelop One Madison Avenue when Credit Suisse lease expires

Elad Group and Daniel Libeskind planned for condo tower at the site before the financial crisis

One Madison Avenue and Marc Holliday (Credit: SL Green)
One Madison Avenue and Marc Holliday (Credit: SL Green)

Architect Daniel Libeskind’s design for a 600-foot-tall condominium tower at One Madison Avenue was one of the most talked-about projects in the city when details leaked in 2007. Elad Group would construct the glassy tower, and reportedly had a deal to buy excess air rights from SL Green Realty above the 16-story limestone building, which runs along 23rd Street from Madison Avenue to Park Avenue South.

That deal fell apart amid the global financial crisis.

Now, more than a decade later, SL Green has plans to use those air rights to redevelop One Madison Avenue as an office building.

The real estate investment trust will use those air rights to build additional floors on top of the existing building.

“The major value paradigm here is there’s somewhere between [250,000] and 450,000 square feet of unused… as-of-right air rights that can be used on a building that was built as a podium,” SL Green CEO Marc Holliday said on the company’s earnings call Thursday.

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“This will be a very exciting redevelopment not only for the company but I think for New York City,” he said.

Credit Suisse is the largest tenant at the 1.1 million-square-foot One Madison Avenue, with a lease expiring in December 2020.

Holliday said he plans to release more details about the redevelopment in December, and that work would likely commence in 2021.

“There will be a couple years of physical work to do at that building,” he said.