Feil Plans to Convert Midtown Office Building Into 47 Residential Units

The Feil Organization has resurrected plans to convert an office property just south of Central Park into apartments, the latest conversion project to hit Midtown. 

Feil wants to turn the 14-story building at 140 West 57th Street into 47 residential units, according to plans filed last week with the New York City Department of Buildings. The initial cost for the project is $17 million.

Brian Altman, head of construction management and project development at Feil, filed the plans, while MdeAS Architects was listed as the architect for the project, according to the filing.

A joint venture led by Feil has closed on a construction financing package to move forward with the conversion, according to a source with knowledge of the deal.

Altman and a spokesperson for MdeAS did not immediately respond to requests for comment. PincusCo first reported the plans being filed and the New York Post reported Feil was going to convert the property to residential in January.

Feil, which bought the building between Avenue of the Americas and Seventh Avenue from Macklowe Properties in 2009 for $59 million, had gone back and forth on a potential office-to-residential project at the site since 2016, when it first submitted plans for a conversion, PincusCo reported. Those plans never moved forward, and Feil appeared to instead want to renovate the building in 2020 and keep it as offices.

The Midtown property, known as the Beaufort, was built in 1907 as apartment studios for artists, but it eventually changed to commercial use, according to PincusCo. The building sits half a block east of famed music venue Carnegie Hall.

Current tenants of 140 West 57th include video production service Perdido Productions on the fourth floor and grocery store Morton Williams Supermarket in ground-floor retail space.

News of the potential conversion comes after another major project announced in Midtown last week, with Yellowstone Real Estate Investments filing plans to convert the 26-story office building at 1730 Broadway into 422 residential units, as Commercial Observer previously reported.

Isabelle Durso can be reached at idurso@commercialobserver.com.