Gary Barnett | The New York Observer

Planned Extell Skyscaper Faces Landmarks Test Over B.F. Goodrich Buildings

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 13:10:59 -0500

Extell Development's skyscraper planned for 57th Street and Broadway will face a big test Tuesday, as the city's Landmarks Preservation Commission is set to decide the fate of two connected buildings built by the B.F. Goodrich Company in 1909.

Just what that fate will be is unclear to many involved, a rare twist with a commission where decisions almost always seem predetermined.

Tuesday morning, the LPC is slated to vote on whether to landmark the...

Plot Twist

Tue, 06 Oct 2009 18:16:45 -0400

There’s a rule of thumb that applies to the city’s Landmarks Preservation Commission: The agency shouldn’t try to designate a building a landmark against its owner’s will unless the commission’s ready for a loud public skirmish. And, generally in the Bloomberg administration, the commission has steered clear of such battles, making for relatively few such messy designation attempts.

So in July, it came as something of a surprise when the LPC took the confrontational action...

The Busiest Man in New York Real Estate

Tue, 21 Jul 2009 19:34:16 -0400

Gary Barnett wrote a letter. It was nine paragraphs and it circulated earlier this year to people like Michael Bloomberg, David Axelrod and Larry Summers.

“Even someone with a good job today is afraid to spend, because he is afraid he will not have a job a few months down the road.”

Mr. Barnett, the prolific president of development concern Extell, then offered a policy prescription for encouraging business amid what was just...

Extell's Hudson Square Ambitions

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 16:03:15 -0400

Will it never end?

Just yesterday, The Observer reported yet another Extell building plan submitted to the city for approval, in that case for a 24-story, 175-unit hotel at 30 West 46th Street. And that was just the latest in a flurry of Extell applications for everything from a hotel at the site of the Antiques Garage to condos at 147 West 21st Street .

Forgive us for speculating, but we may possibly have bureaucracy, of...

Extell Continues to Flood Development Pipeline, Filing Plans for Yet Another Hotel

Tue, 30 Jun 2009 15:23:34 -0400

Extell Development chief Gary Barnett continues to pump projects into the development pipeline, economic concerns apparently no more than a vague nagging feeling at the back of his mind.

On June 26, Extell filed plans to build a 24-story, 175-unit hotel at 30 West 46th Street, just a block over from Mr. Barnett's controversial $750 million Gem Tower at 50 West 47th Street, on which he began construction in May.

Mr. Barnett, himself a former...

Extell Inches Forward with Hotel at Antiques Garage Site

Mon, 22 Jun 2009 15:24:19 -0400

The developer that in 2006 bought the site of the longstanding flea market known as the Antiques Garage for $42.7 million has filed plans with the city to build a hotel.

On June 16, Extell filed plans with the Department of Buildings for a 233,544-square-foot, 29-story hotel at 112 West 25th Street. The site is home to the Antiques Garage, a flea market founded in 1993 that Lynn Yaeger, then with The Village Voice, memorably...

Extell Believes! Plans 112 New Condos

Tue, 21 Apr 2009 15:29:30 -0400

Gary Barnett still believes in the New York City condo market.

On April 3, Mr. Barnett’s Extell Development filed plans with the city for a 13-story, 54-unit residential building at 147 West 21st Street. Then, on April 8, Extell filed plans for an 18-story, 58-unit building at 225 West 58th Street.

The moves demonstrate a rather comforting confidence in what is generally thought to be an ailing marketplace.

In recent first-quarter reports, Corcoran and Douglas Elliman estimated...

Gary Barnett on Depression: Active Extell Chief Pens Letter to a Struggling America

Tue, 03 Mar 2009 15:47:11 -0500

Gary Barnett has a plan to rescue the economy.

A onetime diamond trader whose Extell Development is now one of New York City’s more active real estate firms, Mr. Barnett feels strongly that the government has not yet done enough to counter the economy’s downward spiral, and the country is at strong risk of a depression. Healthy businesses are laying off workers en masse; stable borrowers cannot refinance, and are forced to turn to...

Extell Files Plans for Mammoth Midtown Tower

Mon, 02 Mar 2009 15:44:47 -0500

Extell's Gary Barnett sure is keeping himself busy.

Last week, he disseminated nothing less than a manifesto to rescue the economy, and today, he filed plans with the Buildings Department for an 830,000-square-foot, Costas Kondylis-designed tower for the empty crater at 157 West 57th Street.

George Arzt, Extell's spokesman, said the tower would contain a hotel and a residential complex. If Extell's timing is right, the building might top off just as the economy begins its...

Gary Barnett on How To Stave Off Depression

Fri, 27 Feb 2009 08:58:15 -0500

Gary Barnett has a plan to rescue the economy.

A one-time diamond trader whose Extell Development is now one of New York City’s most active real estate firms, Mr. Barnett feels strongly that the government has not yet done enough to counter the economy’s downward spiral, and the country is at strong risk of depression. Healthy businesses are laying off workers en masse; stable borrowers cannot refinance, and are forced to turn to default.

So in...

Now Showing! Extell’s Portzamparc-Designed Riverside Center

Tue, 25 Nov 2008 13:33:54 -0500

Long in the planning stages, Gary Barnett and his Extell Development Co. have finally let loose images of Riverside Center, their planned 3.3 million-square-foot mostly residential complex at the base of the West Side development once known as Trump City. The Department of City Planning put on its Web site today an environmental review document for the project, a draft scope, which outlined the specifics of what Extell wants to put on the site,...

Extell Steaming Ahead on Giant 'Riverside Center' Amid Early Dissent

Fri, 31 Oct 2008 00:18:26 -0400

Gary Barnett and his Extell Development Co. are plowing forward with their plans for five new glass towers at the base of the Riverside South mega-development on the Upper West Side, and the company now says it plans to kick off early public review in December.

The plan, presented at an Upper West Side community meeting last night by Mr. Barnett himself, calls for four residential towers and one mixed-use tower totaling...

Extell Plans 15-Story Apartment Building on West 20th

Mon, 13 Oct 2008 13:32:48 -0400

Gary Barnett's Extell Development Co. is seeking to build a 15-story apartment tower on West 20th Street, a planned project that will be heard by the city's Landmarks Preservation Commission tomorrow.

The site, 19-25 West 20th Street, is in the Ladies' Mile Historic District, and any new construction would need consent of the commission. The new building would include a three-story addition to an existing garage on the site,...

Extell 'Earning Goodwill' by Nixing West Side Costco

Fri, 26 Sep 2008 14:22:13 -0400

Extell Development has dropped its push to bring Costco to its planned "Riverside Center" site on the Upper West Side, part of the larger Riverside South development by the West Side Highway.

The developer told elected officials this morning that the planned store was off the table, dropping a controversial element of their plan, which calls for up to 2,500 apartments in a series of five towers between 59th and 61st streets.

From the West...

Remember Trump City?

Tue, 05 Aug 2008 19:39:22 -0400

It’s been 23 years since the Upper West Side first gasped at Donald Trump’s plans for a series of soaring towers that would contain 7,600 apartments and a 150-story headquarters for NBC on the 75-acre Penn Central rail yards.

The battle that followed was an epic one—Mr. Trump this week recalled it as a “war to the death”—with politicians making and breaking careers on the issue. The project, first dubbed...

Extell Eyeing Costco For Giant Upper West Side Development

Fri, 25 Jul 2008 11:03:43 -0400

Extell Development is in talks with discount bulk retailer Costco to occupy a large underground store as part of a new 3.3 million-square-foot development of mostly residential buildings on the Upper West Side.

Extell, led by Gary Barnett, is seeking to move forward on developing the last parcels of Riverside South, the 55-acre swath of Upper West Side land known as Trump City when Donald Trump first started planning the complex in the...

So Long, Javits Hotel

Tue, 24 Jun 2008 18:09:57 -0400

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...

Jerry Speyer's Loss Gary Barnett's Gain on Far West Side

Tue, 17 Jun 2008 17:55:54 -0400

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...

Catsimatidis on Barnett Buy: 'Whatever'

Thu, 13 Dec 2007 17:28:35 -0500

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. Barnett, however, said Extell was not involved in the sale or in East 14th Lighthouse LLC, the company listed as the property's buyer in the city deed; the spokesperson confirmed the report published today on The Real Deal's Web site, which claimed...

Gary Barnett on Other West Side Rail Yard Bids: 'They're Flawed'

Tue, 04 Dec 2007 10:30:40 -0500

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. ...

Gary Barnett on Other West Side Rail Yard Bids: 'They're Flawed'

Tue, 04 Dec 2007 08:45:19 -0500

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

Mr. Barnett: When we started to look at it, to us it became clear that any project that talks about having the massive platforms that would be required to build substantial buildings over the working railways is going to be extremely difficult to succeed … We took a very, very different avenue, which...

West Side Rail Yards Proposal No. 4: Extell Creates a Valley

Mon, 19 Nov 2007 16:26:55 -0500

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...

Extell Wants Super-Sized Tower

Fri, 16 Nov 2007 17:36:40 -0500

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...

Gallery: Extell's West Side Plan (UPDATED)

Fri, 16 Nov 2007 12:55:17 -0500

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 59-page PDF of the entire presentation.

The plan,...

Extell Closes on 10th Avenue Parcel for Holl's Wacky Tower

Fri, 09 Nov 2007 18:13:41 -0500

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. The 7,500-square-foot piece of land was the final parcel needed by Extell in preparation for its planned 61-story, 780,000-square-foot mixed-use tower set to rise, as the company had been assembling a lot around a former Stuart Dean-owned building for years.

MTA Gets Official Bids for The West Side Rail Yards

Thu, 11 Oct 2007 20:08:12 -0400

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...

Financial Types To Lace Up for Extell-Backed Boxing

Mon, 13 Aug 2007 09:06:24 -0400

The Extell Development Corporation is taking it to a new level when it comes to raising money for charity.

A source recently told The Observer that the real estate development firm is sponsoring The Extell Wall Street Boxing Charity Championship, a series of boxing matches this fall that will pit various finance types against one another. Each fight, sponsored in conjunction with DoubleDown Media, will benefit a different charity.

...

Riverside South Goes French

Thu, 15 Mar 2007 14:09:55 -0400

After years in which one architect--Costas Kondylis--has dominated the 13-block-long Riverside South development, the new kid in town, Gary Barnett (Extell Development), has commissioned the Pritzker Prize-winning French architect Christian de Portzamparc to design the next three buildings, according to George Arzt, a spokesman for the developer. Monsieur de Portzamparc's Web site says the program consists of three buildings with 3.2 million square feet of office, hotel and residential space between 59th Street and 61st...

Javits Hotel D-Day Comes--and Goes

Thu, 01 Mar 2007 11:32:01 -0500

Today was the day the Empire State Development Corporation was supposed to name the preferred developer for the Javits Convention Center hotel, a supposedly sought-after trophy that no one much ended up caring about. Even though there are but three bidders--Joseph Moinian, Gary Barnett and FaulknerUSA--agency spokesman A.J. Carter told The Real Estate it will be a little bit longer before the winner is announced. "Responses to the RFP are still being evaluated,"...

Diamond Dealers Club Snubs New Extell Tower. For Now.

Mon, 08 Jan 2007 07:40:33 -0500

Who says Gary Barnett's subsidy-backed 47th Street tower will poach all the Diamond District's big tenants? The New York Diamond Dealers Club announced on Monday its intention to remain at the existing World Diamond Tower at 580 Fifth Avenue for another 20 years. "After more than 20 years, the Club is virtually synonymous with 'The 580 World Diamond Tower'," noted Kenneth Kahn, the Fifth Avenue building's executive manager, in a press release. Will that partnership still ring...

Diamonds: A Churl's Best Friend?

Mon, 13 Mar 2006 03:50:43 -0500

Charlie Bagli writes today on the dispute between former Belgian diamond merchant Gary Barnett, now a real-estate developer, and the diamond merchants on the crowded strip of West 47th Street where Mr. Barnett wants to build a 30-story tower that would serve as a global diamond exchange. He says the building could help reinvigorate the dowdy, low-scale block between Fifth Avenue and Avenue of the Americas, an important international diamond center that is under siege...

Inflation in Brooklyn

Wed, 07 Sep 2005 06:59:00 -0400

The Times reports that Forest City Ratner has doubled its offer for the MTA rail yard on which it wants to build part of its Atlantic Yards complex in Brooklyn--basketball arena, offices, retail and housing. The story cites unnamed transportation officials who doubted whether Ratner's rival, Extell Development Company, included a new rail yard as part of its bid. The funny thing is that Extell's July 6 bid clearly did. Though the company would...

Party at Orion Features Doctoroff, Potato Salad

Thu, 18 Aug 2005 04:26:00 -0400

Yesterday, Corcoran's elite brokers and executives mixed it up with a few hundred burly construction workers on the 51st floor of The Orion, Gary Barnett's recent development that will soon be the sixth-tallest residential building in the city. Guests were nervously transported up a rickety elevator to the "topping out party," an event staged when the highest point is reached during construction. CEO Pam Liebman and new marketing COO Jeff Yamaguchi--who just arrived...

Dark-Horse Brooklyn Bidder No Rookie in N.Y. Real Estate

Sun, 31 Jul 2005 20:00:00 -0400

There was a time when politicians and civic groups would beat up on guys who wanted to build sports facilities in New York, supporting a rival’s plan for apartment houses—affordable ones! popular with voters!—even if the rival had no real-estate experience whatsoever (and a political ax to grind). That was back in February. Now a guy steps forth to defeat a stadium plan who is also an experienced real-estate man toting a portfolio of...

This week's issue

Wed, 27 Jul 2005 07:00:00 -0400

Michael Calderone charts the entry of the Mellon mansion onto the Manhattan real-estate market, harbinger of the $20 million townhouse trend. And he and colleague Matthew Schuerman pierce the diamondlike glow of Gary Barnett to find a seasoned real-estater--with a history of coming to blows with developer Bruce Ratner--behind the Atlantic Yards counterbid. Also, Jessica Bruder puts her eye on the danse macabre known as Quiet Disco, a Netherlandish import where radio-controlled headsets carrying feed from...

Barnett 3, Ratner 1

Fri, 22 Jul 2005 13:19:00 -0400

This is getting interesting. The MTA released the bids for the Vanderbilt Yard (a.k.a. Atlantic Yards) over in Brooklyn and it looks like the maverick Extell Development Co., run by Gary Barnett, outbid the Mayor's favored player, Forest City Ratner. Extell is offering $150 million in cash, compared to $50 million offered by Forest City. Forest City is using the number $329.4 million, though, in a press release, which includes money for environmental...

"Expel Extell"

Thu, 14 Jul 2005 05:15:00 -0400

Real-estate kingpin Gary Barnett gets mixed reviews from neighborhood types this week. Activists, led it seems by City Councilman Bill Perkins, are protesting a tower development proposed by Extell for Harlem. The firm recently won praise from activists across town for countering Bruce Ratner's Nets arena plan for downtown Brooklyn. The Daily News and New York 1 both covered the...

Gehry: Bumped Out, Again?

Wed, 06 Jul 2005 14:28:00 -0400

All those protesters who have trailed Brooklyn Beep Marty Markowitz over the past 18 months chanting "Not a done deal" were right. A surprise bidder, Gary Barnett’s Extell Development Corp., made an offer today (Wednesday) on the MTA’s Atlantic Yards and might bump off Frank Gehry’s Crystal City. Barnett--not to be confused with the Gary Barnett of college football infamy--joined with the Carlyle Group to buy out Donald Trump (and a whole bunch...

Scrappy Garage Man Battles Times Tower, Won't Sell His Lots

Sun, 02 Jul 2000 20:00:00 -0400

For nearly a third of his life, ever since he filed his first lawsuit against the state Urban Development Corporation back in 1981, Leonard Weiss has been fighting plans for a "new" Times Square.

The 67-year-old Mr. Weiss owns a parking lot on 41st Street near Eighth Avenue. The parcel is part of a site known as "8S" to the state agency in charge of the Times Square redevelopment project. Over the years, there have...