90+ Story Apartment Building Planned For Manhattan Near Central Park

The ugly Trump World Tower will be deposed as New York City's tallest residential building after a planned 1005 foot apartment building is completed in Manhattan's near the southern end of Central Park.

The tower, designed by the French architect Christian de Portzamparc, will rise 1,005 feet above 57th Street east of Seventh Avenue, feature striking views of Central Park and house what Mr. Barnett hopes will be 136 of the most expensive and luxurious apartments in the city. A 210-room Park Hyatt hotel is to occupy the first 20 floors, hotel analysts say. “We’re going vertical in the next three weeks,” said Mr. Barnett, chief executive of Extell Development. Sounding a little like the developer he is one-upping, he said, “We think it’ll be the nicest project ever built in New York.” The project is the first major construction start in New York since the fall of Lehman Brothers in September 2008, and it is an ambitious, even risky undertaking. Unemployment still hovers at 10 percent in the city, which has only just begun to gain back some of the 150,000 jobs lost during the recession. Not so long ago, the real estate industry was right behind Wall Street and the nation’s automakers in crying for a federal bailout.

The building is being partially financed by a bank owned by the Abu Dhabi government, of course. It's slated for completion in 2013. It looks like yet another bland glass box, at least to judge by the renderings released so far.