A Glass Penthouse Rises for a Second Time

In 2005, the Landmarks Preservation Commission told a TriBeCa developer he would have to tear down a pair of glass, duplex penthouses he had constructed atop a historic building because they rose seven feet higher than the permit allowed.

Now, a new penthouse is nearly finished, but for brokers who lost commissions and were unable to move their buyers into their apartments for more than three years because of the reconstruction, old wounds have been opened.

The reason? The new structure is also two stories, and it is a modern design made of glass.

"What is there now is not a prewar structure that blends in beautifully with the neighborhood," a Prudential Douglas Elliman broker who said he lost $140,000 in commissions when buyers walked away from deals he brokered at the building, Leonard Steinberg, said. "In terms of protecting the visibility of a landmarked building, it is in no way different to what was there before. What exactly did Landmarks achieve?"

The development struggle began in 1996, when the owner of the building, Stanley Scott, set in motion plans to transform several floors of the industrial building that once held his printing business into high-end loft apartments. The crown jewel of what he would eventually call Sky Lofts was to be a pair of duplex penthouses encased entirely in glass built on top of the building.

During construction, the rooftop structure rose to some seven feet taller than the original permit allowed. In 2005, the Landmarks Preservation Commission delivered Mr. Scott a stinging decision: The rooftop structure would have to come down and be replaced with a more appropriate one. Many of the apartments had sold out in 2002, when the building was shown to the public, but none of the residents could move in because the building couldn't obtain a certificate of occupancy while construction of the new penthouse was ongoing.

"It makes me sick in my stomach," another broker, Viviane El-Yachar, said. "The lesson I draw from this is a lack of trust in a city agency."

Ms. El-Yachar said a client of hers, Adriaan Van Der Knapp, bought an apartment at the building in 2002. They were told he and his family had only to wait a few months to move in, but every few months they were told of another delay.

"His whole life was a mess," she said. "He couldn't move into what was going to be his home. After three years, his kids were in different schools. It was too late. For him it was a horror."

"There were delays that were only half explained," a broker from Sotheby's International Realty, Glenn Norrgard, said of his experience with the building. "I never really understood why they had to change the roof, and no one told us."

A spokeswoman for the Landmarks Preservation Commission, Elisabeth de Bourbon, said she could not comment on the new structure because the commission hasn't yet reviewed it, but she said the drawings the commission approved show it "will relate better" because it is centered on the roof and made of unreflective glass.

Of the decision to require the structure to be torn down, she said: "They built something illegally and they had to correct it." The new structure will include just one penthouse instead of two. The asking price could reach as high as $30 million, according to sources who have been briefed about the property.

Where the first structure was made of reflective glass and had a roof that sloped away from a flat top, the new one is made of a clearer type of glass and is shaped like a rectangle.

Another point of contention is whether the new structure is more in line with the historical context of the building and the neighborhood. The first rooftop addition was designed by Joseph Pell Lombardi to resemble a kind of glass skylight structure that was in a draft of the 1929 building's original plans. In 1997, the commission approved the plan, albeit at one story, not two.

The new penthouse, designed by Rogers Marvel Architects, will take up 7,493 square feet and include a 4,500-square-foot terrace, according to an advertisement that was released by Stribling last Sunday. The old structure had two penthouses with a combined total of 8,950 square feet of apartment space and 3,300 square feet of terrace space, according to city records.

For Mr. Scott, the developer, the completion of the new penthouse is the beginning of the end of a long ordeal.

"As neighborhoods evolve, attitudes change," Mr. Scott said. "It cost us millions of dollars to change it and a lot of time, but all I can say to you is that if you have had any relationships or business interaction with the city, you try to find a level of accommodation." The building finally has a certificate of occupancy and tenants have moved in, including the co-founder of the television show, "24," Robert Cochran, who paid $8.1 million earlier this year for a 5,198-square-foot apartment on the 14th floor, according to city records.

Another 10 apartments are also getting ready to go on the market, Mr. Scott said.

A spokeswoman for the project, Amy Gotzler, and a Stribling executive vice president in charge of Sky Loft sales, Sean Turner, declined to comment for this article.