

Thing is about those 'fancy toppings'? They actually serve engineering design purposes! Back when I was doing some recreational reading, I ended up reading how they will put structures up on the tops of skyscrapers to help counteract various forces. Looking at the towers in Dubai, they all have a fancy topping, which 432 Park lacks. Fair enough.īut, I gotta say this about 432 Park - It's a bloody box. The newest two tallest residential structures are both in NYC as well, but below that, you have a lot of buildings in Dubai. Okay, looking at the buildings, I can immediately see some differences. I looked specifically at residential structures because, well, the demands are different than for commercial property. I'm not that concerned about whether it's a couple off in the list, just getting a sense of magnitude. It's the 29th tallest building in the world according to wikipedia. It'd be one thing if the 4 links had been to for different towers, but given that they're all to the same one, I would indeed consider it being a lemon of a building to be a possibility.Ĥ32 Park is listed as the 3rd tallest residential structure. As long as problems don’t crop up before they unload the property, they can do whatever they want.” The people who put up the buildings are not accountable for their quality. The problem is not confined to tall buildings, says a well-known structural engineer who asked to remain anonymous so his career wouldn’t spontaneously combust: “It’s the way development operates in New York. It’s the fulfillment of the kind of scary situation you’re warned about.”Ībsolutely, says Steven Edgett, an elevator specialist and the president of the California-based Edgett Williams Consulting Group: “As soon as I saw the core of 432 Park, alarm bells went off.” The elevator shafts are too tight, he says, making breakdowns a foregone conclusion. Not at all, says James von Klemperer, president of the architecture firm Kohn Pedersen Fox, which plants skyscrapers all over the world: “In a building that thin, this kind of thing can happen, but it shouldn’t. Howard Lorber, the executive chairman of Douglas Elliman, is also a resident.Do they have to sway? Must the wind whistle through the vents? Will elevator cables unavoidably slap and cabs go out of service? Does the plumbing predictably rebel, creating a 1,000-foot cascade inside the central utility shaft? Are these interruptions of the good life a necessary condition of the high life? She is married to Bennett Lebow, the chairman of Vector Group, a holding company that controls Douglas Elliman Real Estate - the brokerage that led sales at 432 Park. She also denied claims that she might have a conflict of interest in running for the board. Jacqueline Finkelstein-Lebow, the principal of JSF Capital, a real estate investment firm, and a homeowner who recently won a seat on the board, called other residents’ attempts to “lawyer up” against the developers misguided, in a letter to residents.
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Residents have been divided on how to address the building’s problems.

Slinin, in a phone call, subsequently downplayed the SBI findings, saying that the mechanical issues “were minor things.” SBI did not respond to email or calls for comment. Initial findings showed that 73 percent of mechanical, electrical and plumbing components observed failed to conform with the developers’ drawings, and that almost a quarter “presented actual life safety issues,” Mr. The group commissioned SBI Consultants, an engineering firm, to study mechanical and structural issues. Slinin, the president of Corporate Transportation Group, said he was working with about 40 “concerned unit owners,” out of about 103 units, not including staff apartments, to rein in costs and address possibly dangerous conditions in the building. The residents, many of whom live elsewhere most of the year, have splintered into groups. When the building opened in late 2015, homeowners were required to spend $1,200 a year on the service in 2021, that requirement jumps to $15,000, despite limited hours of operation because of the pandemic. Some residents also railed against surging fees at the building’s private restaurant, overseen by the Michelin-star chef, Shaun Hergatt. The insurance hike was partly because of a sprinkler discharge and two “water related incidents” in 2018 that cost the building about $9.7 million in covered losses, according to a letter from the residential board of managers. Eduard Slinin, a resident who was elected to the condo board late last year, wrote a letter to neighbors in 2020 reporting that the building’s insurance costs had increased 300 percent in two years.
