New York's Condo Reach: How Much is Too Much?

When Phillip Johnson designed the SONY building back in the early 1980s along Madison Avenue, large corner offices were the order of the day and so were expansive executive board and wood-paneled dining rooms.  No longer— office buildings, laced in granite and marble and designed with executive suites for corporate luxury are now just so passé and much too unwieldy for bottom lines. Today companies want to squeeze in as many workers as possible into less rentable space and much prefer wide open floor plates. That makes mere 30-year-old relic buildings candidates for 21^st century style condo conversions. And developers now see bigger value in the high-end condo projects than in either office or hotels. The marble and granite part may still be popular, but in kitchen countertops and shower-bathroom accommodations rather than in vast entrance lobbies and curtain wall.

In Manhattan, ultra luxury condominium towers rise up like mushroom spikes in midtown and downtown office districts. At Park and 56^th and along West 57^th Street—three soaring structures race skyward, remarkable primarily for their banal designs and staggering asking prices. Jumping on the bandwagon as expected, the new SONY building owners announce their plans to convert the so called Chippendale-top building into super expensive apartments on one of Manhattan’s most shadowy office corridors.  A decade old hotel wedged into the narrow midblock on W. 52^nd Street reboots into condos too, with units marketed (surprise-surprise) well into the millions. Downtown the fabled Woolworth Building gets the makeover treatment across from City Hall. These and other priced off-the-charts residential units hardly are located in welcoming homey districts—and most of the people who end up buying them likely will not be spending much time in them. That’s not the idea.