Council Member Wants to Block Extell’s Bank Proposal at The Belnord’s Retail Condos
By Isabelle Durso September 20, 2024 12:38 pm
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Extell Development’s plans to open a bank at The Belnord’s ground-floor retail condominium may be a no-go after a local City Council member filed complaints about the proposal this week.
In an effort to get around city zoning laws and secure a tenant for his empty retail space at the landmarked Upper West Side building, Gary Barnett’s Extell filed an application in June to lease 4,639 square feet to an unnamed bank, as Commercial Observer previously reported.
But New York City Councilmember Gale Brewer, who represents the neighborhood, put a screeching halt to that request this week by asking the City Planning Commission to reject the application, effectively canceling a planned vote on Extell’s proposal, according to Crain’s New York Business, which first reported the news.
Spokespeople for Brewer and Extell did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Extell’s building at 225 West 86th Street — which serves as the exterior in Hulu’s “Only Murders in the Building” television show — requires the city’s approval due to zoning regulations enacted in 2012, which limit banks to having just 25 feet of ground-floor frontage on Broadway between 72nd and 110th streets, Crain’s reported. Extell’s building currently has 46 feet of frontage.
Brewer was the one who advocated for those zoning regulations, and now she doesn’t want the city to approve Extell’s request because it would “set a precedent for other landlords to break the law,” she wrote in a letter this week to Daniel Garodnick, chair of City Planning.
“The purpose of the zoning is to make the streetscape interesting with active commercial properties lining the streets,” Brewer wrote in the letter. “This bank space could be occupied by any other kind of commercial enterprise, just not a bank!”
City Planning will postpone a vote on Extell’s request, as there is “no deadline attached to the proposal,” Crain’s cited a City Planning spokesperson as saying.
Extell, for its part, wrote in its June application that opening the bank space at The Belnord would “help activate the Broadway streetscape and reinvigorate this portion of the [district] with needed commercial activity,” according to Crain’s.
The developer has also argued that its request is in alignment with an exception to the zoning laws. Exceptions are allowed if landlords can prove there’s a high ground-floor vacancy rate “within a reasonable distance” of the retail space, Crain’s reported.
Nevertheless, Extell’s application will be postponed as the developer continues to try to secure a tenant at the 225 West 86th retail space, which has been vacant for years after Banana Republic decamped and moved across the street in 2012. In 2023, Extell scored a small victory when Starbucks opened a 2,061-square-foot location at the building.
Extell bought the 12-story Belnord between Broadway and Amsterdam Avenue in 1994 and sold the residential portion to HFZ Capital in 2015 for $555 million, CO previously reported.
It kept about 65,438 square feet of retail space at the bottom and scored a $100 million loan from Flagstar Bank in 2015. Barnett defaulted on that loan in July and now faces foreclosure, meaning a bank tenant at the property — if it’s allowed — would help the developer bring in some much-needed cash.
Isabelle Durso can be reached at idurso@commercialobserver.com.
