Plans for a soaring new hotel across from an expanded Javits Center have now gone the way of, well, an expanded Javits Center.

With expansion plans scaled back months ago, the Paterson administration earlier in June refunded the deposits of the three bidders vying to build the Javits Hotel, a tower planned to hold at least 1,200 rooms along 11th Avenue at 35th Street. Plans for the site and hotel are now unclear, and the state would need to undergo the lengthy process of a new environmental review, then a new request for proposals, before awarding the job to any developer.  read more »

Jerry Speyer’s loss at the West Side rail yards seems to be working out pretty well for Gary Barnett.

With Mr. Speyer defeated—the chairman of Tishman Speyer Properties fumbled the $1 billion deal with the state to buy the site’s development rights in May, ultimately backing out of an agreement—so, too, has fallen his plan to raze a piece of a former elevated rail line that runs along the rail yards on 30th Street.

Enter Mr. Barnett.

The president of Extell Development is planning a 61-story Steven Holl-designed mixed-use tower on the northeast corner of 10th Avenue and 30th Street, from which he plans an elevated pedestrian bridge to the section of rail line.  read more »

John Catsimatidis told The Observer today that Extell Development chairman Gary Barnett was one of the two buyers of his commercial building at 516 East 14th Street.

A spokesperson for Mr.  read more »

We sat down with Gary Barnett, president of Extell Development, to talk about his firm's bid for the West Side rail yards. Mr. Barnett also talked about Extell's failed bid for Atlantic Yards and its plans for building a 57th Street hotel and condo.

The interview can be read here. It will also be in The Observer's print edition tomorrow.

Location: Could you generally talk about what you tried to accomplish with your bids for the West Side rail yards?
 read more »

Extell Development’s architect, Steven Holl, came up with the idea of building a very low suspension bridge over the West Side Rail Yards instead of a deck that would be supported by piers scattered among the tracks. That way, workers would only have to tinker along the north and south edges of the site, leaving the rail yards to function normally underneath them.

“I think we are the only project that is really minimally invasive with the Long Island Rail Road, with the MTA operations, and I think we will have a much lower cost of construction as a result,” said Extell’s founder Gary Barnett. “You know you don’t have to put a billion dollars or more into a platform up front.”  read more »

Extell Development Co.’s proposal for the Western Rail Yards, which is the first of five that the public and press can get a look at, really revs up the amount of green space on the ground by building tall. Really tall. The tripled-legged tower pictured to the right would stretch 1,238 feet into the air, rivaling the Empire State Building’s 1,250-foot height, and outdoing that icon in total square footage and the size of its observation deck.

Other buildings in the Extell proposal are quite a bit smaller, but still considerable: at around 700 feet tall, the so-called “sun slice” buildings proposed for 30th Street orient their narrow sides to the south to cut down on shadows cast over the open space behind them.

According to the plans (PDF), the footprints of all buildings will take up just 25 percent of the property, compared to 52 percent in the plans proposed by the city and the MTA, leaving an extra 7 acres or so of open space. Also, the plan would eliminate any discharge of storm water by funneling it into a reservoir that would run through the center of the park, and the plan claims to reduce energy consumption by 50 percent thanks to a geothermal cooling system and cogeneration.

The development company, led by Gary Barnett, also proposes a Long Island Rail Road station along 33rd Street between 11th and 12th avenues. After all, you never know how long it will take them to build this No. 7 line.  read more »

On Sunday, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority will be showing the proposals for the West Side Rail Yards to the press, and either shortly before or shortly after, images of these urban utopias will begin appearing in the media.

But Extell Development Co., one of the five bidders, could not wait. It put up on its Web site six images and a brief description, and a 59-page PDF outlining their presentation (PDF).

The lead architect is reportedly Steven Holl and you can see his influence everywhere.

The plan, according to the copy, “maximizes public space and creates a porosity and openness for the site from all sides and approaches, connecting Midtown, the Chelsea Arts District, and the convention center with a grand public park open to the Hudson River; and its innovative structural system for spanning over the Rail Yards will minimize the impacts of development on the Caemmerer Yards and allow it to offer more for the right to develop.”

See the jump for pictures.

Maverick developer Gary Barnett and his Extell Development Company have closed on a sliver of Port Authority-owned land at 31st Street and 10th Avenue for about $17 million, property records show.  read more »

Five developers have bid on the Western Rail Yards. The bids came into the yards' owner, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, by 5 p.m. on Thursday, and they include the usual heavyweights of New York City building.

1. Extell Development Company
2. Brookfield Properties Developer LLC
3. The Related Companies
4. TS West Side Holding, LLC (A Joint Venture of Tishman Speyer and Morgan Stanley)
5. Hudson Center East LLC and Hudson Center West LLC (A Joint Venture of Vornado Realty Trust and The Durst Organization, Inc.)

For the MTA's statement on the selection process, which should drag on toward at least spring, click here.

For earlier Observer coverage of the architects who could get to shape the yards, click here.