Heavyweight NYC developer Extell starts building in Westchester

Extell Development, which is viewed as redefining the Manhattan skyline with its high-rise projects that include the 1,550-feet-tall, 131-story Central Park Tower, has started construction on Hudson Piers, a project that has been greeted with expectations of redefining the Yonkers Hudson River waterfront.

While Central Park Tower is billed as the world”™s tallest residential building, the $585 million Hudson Piers project in Yonkers, with a complex of seven-story buildings containing approximately 1,400 luxury and affordable units, will represent a comparatively low-rise major transformation of a former industrial and now vacant 17.4-acre parcel at 159 Alexander St. The site is bounded by Alexander, Water Grant streets and,Babcock Place and the river. A groundbreaking ceremony on May 5 marked the start of above-ground construction.

“Building high-rises in Manhattan is an incredibly difficult job to make a success of it,” Gary Barnett, founder and chairman of Extell, told the Business Journals. “Red tape, regulations, the time, the actual scale of building a building that tall is an exceptionally difficult thing to do. Building here is not as hard but it”™s also something to create; a large expanse of land, a lot of units. They”™re all beautiful. Tall is beautiful, short is beautiful. As long as they”™re the right type of project and the right type of creative building, we”™re excited to do it.”

Extell Development, which was founded in 1989, reports having more than 25 million square feet of development completed or underway. Among its New York projects are: The Orion, a 500-unit residential tower at 350 W. 42nd St.; the 550-foot Hyatt Times Square, which has 487 guest rooms; One57, a 1,000-feet-tall building with 132 luxury apartments at 157 W. 57th St.; and The Kent at 200 E. 95th St., a 30-story building with 83 condominiums. In addition to other projects in Manhattan, Extell is responsible for developments in Brooklyn, Boston, Utah, Texas and Colorado.

“This is going to be spectacular too,” Barnett said of Hudson Piers. “Look at the surrounding area; really beautiful water, wide expanse of the Hudson River, the Palisades. This is really beautiful land, a beautiful view and we”™re planning to build something of scale. We”™re happy to be doing it and we hope it will be a success for everybody.”

Barnett had high praise for Yonkers, especially its location only a short train ride to and from Manhattan on Metro-North, saying, “It”™s very well situated. It”™s got great leadership with a mayor and the council that appreciate development, appreciate job creation, appreciate the amenities and everything that”™s going to be provided from some of the earlier projects and by these projects, so that”™s a place where you feel welcome to come and develop and to create beautiful projects.”

Profiles of Barnett show that when he was born in 1956 he was Gershon Swiatycki, the son of a rabbi and Talmudic scholar living on the Lower East Side of Manhattan but didn”™t change his name to Gary Barnett until much later when he got into real estate. The Swiatycki family moved to Monsey in Rockland County, where there was a growing Orthodox community. Barnett went to Queens College, where he received a bachelor”™s degree in mathematics. He continued his education at Hunter College, earning a master”™s degree in economics.

While vacationing in Florida in 1980, he met the daughter of the founder of Belgian diamond company S. Muller & Sons. The two got married and Barnett joined the diamond company, moving to Antwerp. He remained with the company for a dozen years, largely as a diamond trader, but also started investing in U.S. real estate.

After building a portfolio, he moved back to New York and plunged into U.S. real estate with both feet. That included not being at all squeamish when it came to looking for bigger deals on bigger properties. His early purchases included the Belnord Apartments at Broadway and 86th Street. In 1996, he started a project to develop a Planet Hollywood Hotel near Times Square, which didn”™t go as hoped and instead opened as the W Times Square Hotel.

A deal from approximately 17 years ago that Barnett still talks about as being important for him in realizing the potential of Hudson River waterfront property involved buying a piece of Manhattan”™s West Side from Donald Trump and a group of Chinese investors. The property is near the Hudson River between 59th and 72nd street and it happened to be home to Trump Palace and Riverside South. Extell did the deal in partnership with The Carlyle Group.

Barnett recalled that the purchase resulted in Donald Trump suing in court and Trump losing. Trump”™s lawsuit named Barnett personally as well as Extell and several other entities.

According to court documents, Extell and the Carlyle Group had bought the property and three existing residential buildings from Trump and the group of Chinese investors for $1.76 billion. Vacant land offered space to construct additional buildings. Trump”™s share of the purchase price was supposed to be $500 million. Trump claimed in the lawsuit that his partners should have gotten more by negotiating with other prospects or staging an auction. Among other things, Trump filed a series of amended complaints and the case took several years to work its way through the court system with Trump eventually losing.

The Hudson Piers project, which will be developed in three phases over a six-year period, is expected to create 200 permanent jobs and 450 to 500 construction jobs. It will provide approximately 870,000 rentable square feet of residential space in buildings of seven stories with more than 37,000 rentable square feet of ground floor retail space. There will be a mix of residential units ranging from studios to three-bedrooms.

The development will feature 1.5 acres of new public parkland as well as a 1.5-mile-long esplanade extension that will adjoin to the existing public waterfront promenade. Plans also call for the construction of an elevated roadway to be named Riverside Drive, which will be deeded back to Yonkers.