It’s curtains for an interior designer and other tenants at the Feil Organization’s office building at 140 West 57th Street, which insiders speculate is heading toward a Billionaires’ Row residential conversion.
Feil has stopped renewing leases at the landmarked office building across the street from Extell Development’s One57, the New York Post reported.
Interior designer Brian J. McCarthy, whose suite was featured in Architectural Digest a year ago, is one of the tenants being forced to leave. The company is moving to a building nearby at 57 West 57th Street,
“We’re out of here,” a source told the Post. “Our eight-year lease is up and we were told it would not be renewed.”
The decision came suddenly from Feil. Other tenants have been told their leases will not be renewed as well.
The 80,000-square-foot, 14-story building from 1907 has double-height windows which were designed to provide light to artists. Feil bought the building for $59 million in 2009 from Harry Macklowe. The owner could redevelop the building as a hotel or even as a boutique office property for a single, high-end user, but Feil has already drawn up floor plans for apartments, according to the Post.
The move comes despite a slow-down in the ultra-luxury market that has come to define Billionaires’ Row. There exists about five years’ worth of inventory in Manhattan’s overall condo market, as The Real Deal reported in March. [NYP] – Rich Bockmann