I believe that Yimby’s article refers to the Puma building on 5th which the developer owns. It’s a beautiful building although Puma desecrated the base. I really hope that Vinoly Architects doesn’t desecrate it further with a heinous glass addition.
This is potentially as tragic as the Rape of Lucretia.
This block has nice, old buildings. I wouldn’t want to see anything demolished.
There’s some discrepancy in this article, which states:
“Demolition permits will likely not be needed as the lot is vacant.”
just 400 feet on the small lot at 4east 49th street?
609 fifth ave.
Im also very confused by this portion of the article because the building takes up the full lot, and as you pointed out, the article definitely does seem to be referencing 609 5th Ave. The article also mentions the lot as being an interior lot, which it is not.
If they are adding a “new” building somewhere that is planned to be 29 stories tall, the floor plates will only be about 6400sqft, which is about half of that of the current floor plates so I dont think you will have to worry that much about an addition affecting the building’s appearance 
, I’m just mostly confused by the whole location and permit description, really the article in general.
@007 Why are you so confused by the height/size of the new addition. All buildings in NYC cant be ginormous and tall. The FAR allowance for this building is 192K sqft, which is what they are building to. A 400’ building is quite reasonable for a 29 story addition/building. A 900’ building like you want would generate 31’ floor heights which is absurd. Also the articles you posted are irrelevant now, the Puma Store is the result of the second article.
I just hope that they don’t strip off the limestone facade and put glass on the whole thing.
The new addition to the Coach building up Fifth looks great. I don’t know if Vinoly’s firm has the talent to achieve something like that though.
I wouldn’t see a need to do that (strip the facade) if this is just an addition that doesn’t span the full building’s area/not a total renovation. Vinoly’s firm has done plenty of adaptive reuse/addition projects, and they are almost all good, he didn’t/doesn’t just design glass boxes.
Similarly, not all of Marin Architects (who designed the Mandarin Oriental residences atop the Coach store) projects are good, so firms/architects should not be judged based on one project. So say that Vinoly’s firm doesnt have the talent to design something great but Marin designed the H Hotel W39.
I agree with you on that one.
It’s the block between 47th and 48th on the east side of Fifth.
The building has two condo units. One is retail which Puma occupies and the other is an Office Condo. There are two different owners here. The Office condo will go through a vertical extension since it has unused air rights and will be transformed into residential condos. The office condo unit had already been gutted out by the former tenant We Work.
Is that a vision or what’s actually planned?
Limestone would be much nicer for the addition. If this is the actual proposal, I’m glad hope Puma’s crazy glass will be replaced. I’m also glad that they’re not stripping the limestone from the base.
So what was already done to Puma is staying since they are under different ownership. The image you see above is a rendering.
Agreed Robert, my first reaction when I saw that rendering was RAMSA could do so much better.
Thanks. It’s not bad. I feared that they would strip the limestone off the base. I’m glad that they will not.
I’m surprised that it’s just a simple box with no setbacks. I guess they’re going for the most cost-effective route.
In any event, I hope it’s successful and spurs more residential construction on lousy nearby office buildings like Stawski’s PoS on the next block.
up to 31 stories
