City says 200 Amsterdam doesn’t have to chop 20 floors off (yet)
Rendering courtesy of Binyan Studios
On Tuesday the city halted a judge’s order to stop construction–or, rather, deconstruction and demolition–on the 55-story condominium tower at 200 Amsterdam Avenue in Manhattan, the Wall Street Journal reports. Last month, 6sqft reported that State Supreme Court Judge W. Franc Perry ordered the city to revoke the building permit for the Upper West Side’s tallest tower north of 61st Street, ruling that developers SJP Properties and Mitsui Fudosan America would have to chop the building’s height by as many as 20 stories to conform to zoning limits. This week’s ruling means work can continue on construction of the skyscraper despite opposition from activists and critics.
The city’s buildings department, a review panel and board of standards and appeals had approved the developer’s 2017 building permit, and the 668-foot tall condo tower had topped out at 668 feet in August 2019; marketing had been moving forward for the 112 condominiums within, including two $40 million penthouses.
The project has been disputed by community groups and elected officials, who argued that the building extends beyond the building site, which is prohibited by the city’s zoning code, resulting in an oddly-shaped, “gerrymandered” lot. The Municipal Art Society of New York (MAS) and the Committee for Environmentally Sound Development (CFESD) jointly filed a new Article 78 petition against the project last July.
If Judge Perry’s dramatic February decision is overturned, the developers will have to deconstruct the $650 million tower, including the penthouses. Next, the case will move to an appellate panel and might face a review by the Court of Appeals, the state’s highest court.
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