B. wrote: It seems there’s so many stalled projects in Tribeca. Is this because they get a better tax write off vs completing? I’m thinking 17 Leonard, 101 Franklin and on top of the former J. Crew store.

Taking 50 Hudson first since finally there is work going on again there. (And I am hoping James will repost his analysis of empty buildings from years ago…)

The original plan…

The sweet little building that is 50 Hudson at the corner with Thomas was for sale — listed as One Duane Park — and according to the Commercial Observer, much of it was just sold to  George Yancopoulos, co-founder of the biotech company Regeneron. He purchased five commercial condo units and one residential unit (almost the whole building) through the entity GLT Hudson Holdings, paying $32.2 million all-in to previous owner Eric Schlagman, according to the Commercial Observer.

The building has been under construction since October 2021, when the late Tribecan and architect Thierry Despont designed an addition of three extra floors to the three-story building. The plans were approved by Landmarks in 2017.

The ground floor, which had J. Crew for years, now has The Lotus Method in its retail space; the listing says the other bottom floors are leased to commercial tenants. The top three floors have 17 windows on each floor, and can be commercial (owner should have a white box in 6 months) or can be converted to a PH mansion/residential. The top floors have a separate entrance and garage.

The new structure will add 8200 square feet to the commercial building, which must have been built sometime between 1898 and 1927, based in some historical photos. (The height will go from 38 feet to 59, according to DOB records, though it seems to me the penthouse structure, which is out of the sightlines, would add another 10 feet.)

When the plans were first shown to the Landmarks Commission in July 2017, they thought it was *too* contextual — they asked that it be more of a departure from the historic part of the building. Despont obliged and it got glassier: the second iteration, approved later that year, removed the set-back, removed the greenery at the setback and made the addition a smidge taller and added glass at the corners and on the parapet.

You can see the original proposal to Landmarks here. Plans back then also included improvements to the facade of the original structure, including restoration of the windows on the upper floors and the addition of garage doors on the Thomas Street side. The current rendering above is slightly different from the one below; can’t explain the discrepancy.

The updated plan…