The new residential condo building at 20 West 40th Street is officially slated to grace the Bryant Park area sometime in 2016, after years of planning and unfortunate setbacks for the site.
The impending Bryant Park condo project is envisioned to become a fixture in the New York City skyline. The project will comprise a 32-story luxury hotel with 159 guest rooms, 2,500 square feet of retail space, 25,500 square feet dedicated to restaurant space, and 66 condo units. It will also enjoy a plethora of glass, stainless steel, granite, and exquisite marble, and its tile facade will be complimented by units with oversized floor-to-ceiling windows fashioned in a contemporary style. Plans also call for the project to have just two units on each of its top four floors, making way for condos encompassing major spaces.
Adjacent to Byant Park, the Morris Adjmi-designed, mixed-use tower will be perfectly nestled between Times Square and Grand Central Station. The project has been in the works by Ziel Feldman’s HFZ Capital Group since 2010. Reportedly, they just filed their new plans on January 27th with the Department of Buildings.
HFZ is a Manhattan-based real estate development company and investment firm with expertise in analytics, structured finance, investment, construction, and asset management. The firm has had several projects traversing the residential and commercial real estate markets around the city and abroad in recent years.
The HFZ Capital Group started the Bryant Park condo project with several investors and purchased the previously foreclosed property, which had been left listless in a lot used for parking four years ago. Some of the investors pulled out and sold their share for $83 million, leaving HFZ to continue the project, despite its setbacks.
According to The Real Deal, HFZ sought financing through the EB-5 Program, which allows for foreign investors to attain citizenship via a minimum investment of $500,000 into a development project. This federal program has been around since 1990, and it has been gaining popularity with developers since the recession hit and banks created tighter financing regulations.
Out of the $252.8 million HFZ needed for the project, $52.5 million has come from the EB-5 program, with the remaining amount being obtained through bank financing and equity.
The Bryant Park condo project was originally planned by the Starwood Capital Group back in 2007. They intended to make a 31-story LEED certified hotel and condo. Although the designer, Adjmi, stayed on, their plans never came to fruition; Starwood Capital started foreclosure proceedings and sold the site to HFZ.