Linden78 at 230 West 78th Street in Upper West Side

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Yes

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Yes

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Yes

It will be at least 3 years before this development is ready for occupancy. The developer only opened the sales office to get a feeling how many people are willing to pay $1,800 and more per square foot for the glory of saying they live on the Upper West Side (which as recently as 1997 was considered a down market honky-tonk neighborhood).

The developer has only torn down 1 building (230 West 78th) but also needs to tear down 232 West 78th (which is still occupied) and also wants to buy and then tear down the adjacent New York comedy club all the way to the buildings on the corner of 78th and Broadway (which is only a 2 story retail/ office building and is also outside of the historic district). If the developer could acquire and tear down all of those buildings, the developer would have a huge land parcel and could build a beautiful modern glass an steel tower. This could all take years and it pays the developer to just sit on the land, capitalize their costs, and watch the price of Manhattan land rise. However, there is no point in actually buying one of these condos yet because they are massively overpriced ($1,800 psf versus market rates of $1,200 psf for UWS condos) and nothing will be ready until for move-in until the Summer of 2010 or later. Walk by the site and you will see exactly what I mean.