Related Plans Condo, Hotel Tower at 625 Madison Avenue

Stephen Ross intends to build the Madison Avenue condo tower that Ben Ashkenazy dreamed of.

Ross’ Related Companies is planning to build a multi-billion dollar tower at 625 Madison Avenue that will include retail, a hotel and condos, according to people familiar with the project. Sources said the company is already in talks with several luxury hotel and retail brands.

That area of Midtown has seen a recent influx of high-end investments, including Vlad Doronin’s Aman hotel and condo at the Crown Building just a short walk over on Fifth Avenue.

Deals by big names in luxury goods have spurred confidence in a local retail resurgence. Prada spent more than $830 million in December for a pair of retail properties on Fifth Avenue from Jeff Sutton’s Wharton Properties. And the parent company of Gucci bought the retail portion of a building on the shopping strip for $963 million, also from Wharton.

A spokesperson for Related declined to comment.

Related’s redevelopment of the site will be the latest chapter for the storied property.

Ashkenazy paid $400 million in 2013 to buy the ground at the site, where the 17-story, 563,000-square-foot building was controlled by SL Green under a long-term lease. (The deal came years after Related owned a stake in the building through the 1990s and housed its offices there.)

With the Billionaires’ Row condo market heating up and the ground lease due for a rent reset in the coming years, Ashkenazy’s business partner Michael Alpert in 2016 said the property could be worth at least $1.4 billion as a residential development site.

SL Green eventually wrestled control of the property away from Ashkenazy via foreclosure and in December struck a deal to sell it to Related for much less than that: $632.5 million. Still, the price tag for the completed projected will likely reach into the multi-billion dollar area.

Related plans to demolish the current building and redevelop a new one from the ground up after it closes on the purchase.