DOB issues permit for city’s tallest residential tower

The 84-story tower at 432 Park Avenue will be NYC’s loftiest

The New York City Department of Buildings has issued a permit for the construction of a new, 84-story residential building, slated to be the city’s tallest, at the 432 Park Avenue site where CIM Group and Macklowe Properties plan to build condominiums, the DOB confirmed today. The permit, for a 1,400-foot-tall residential tower at the site of the former Drake Hotel, was issued earlier this month.

If construction proceeds as planned, the tower, which will offer retail as well as the ultra-luxury apartments and will be designed by SLCE Architects, will reach 1,398 feet in 2016. That heights tops One57, which will become the city’s tallest residential tower when it is completed later this year.

CIM and Harry Macklowe — who has no equity in the project but is involved — plan to erect a mixed-use complex designed by Rafael Vinoly. With 128 residential units and 12-foot high ceilings, the project is expected to cost $1 billion, according to previous reports. The permit means that the ambitious project — which is slated to include golf training facilities and private dining and screening rooms — can move forward. The application for the site, at 56th Street, was filed last May, the DOB said.

But the 432 Park Avenue site may not be the city’s tallest for long. The GiraSole tower proposed for 11th Avenue could rise to a similar height when it is completed. The project has been stalled for years, after initial reports said the building, which architects hope to design as essentially a huge solar panel, would be completed by 2011.

Sign Up for the undefined Newsletter

CIM, a Los Angeles-based private equity firm which acquired the Drake Hotel site for $305 million in 2010, has said it is confident that it will get the $700 million construction loan it needs to complete the 432 Park project, according to previous reports. Calls to CIM’s representatives were not returned.

CIM also paid $42.5 million for the 18-foot wide townhouse at 46 East 57th Street, a property adjacent to the assemblage, last January.

The recent filing also means that some of the clogs in the construction process have been resolved, although neither Macklowe nor SLCE Architects responded to calls for comment. When construction started last October, the site was slapped with a partial stop work order, according to previous reports, due to excavation work beginning without proper notification of the DOB.

— Additional reporting by Leigh Kamping-Carder