Carter's Review

The Link is a sleek, 44-story, mid-block residential condominium tower at 310 West 52nd Street that is most notable for its clear-glass "cube" entrance that is similar to the one erected in 2006 by Macklowe Properties for an Apple store at the GM Building on Fifth Avenue between 59th and 60th Streets. 

It was developed by Elad Properties, of which Miki Naftali is a principal. Its other Manhattan projects include the residential conversion of part of the Plaza Hotel, the residential conversion of the former Gift Building at 225 Fifth Avenue and the former O’Neill Store at 655 Avenue of the Americas. 

Costas Kondylis and Partners and Gal Nauer Architects were the design team for The Link. 

The building has 215 condominium apartments and was completed in 2007.

Bottom Line

The Link's mid-block site not only offers considerably less traffic and noise than one on the avenue, but also provides it with better and less obstructed views.

Description

While not directly on Eighth Avenue, The Link is one of several new high-rise projects that have significantly spruced up the once seedy and tawdry boulevard. The glass-and-aluminum-panel tower is 498 feet high and has a graceful top that is illuminated at night. 

The tower, which has about a dozen façades, has many corner windows as it is not a pure slab. Its "cube" entrance is set in a plaza and there is a 6-story wing that is part of the project on the west side of the site that contains two townhouse units with three-bedrooms and three bathrooms, and a terrace.

Amenities

The building has a 24-hour doorman/concierge, a double-height fitness center, private storage, a live-in superintendent and two landscaped gardens accessible only to the building. 

It has no roof deck, no garage and no balconies. 

It is pet-friendly. 

Apartments

Some apartments have ceilings as tall as 17 feet. 

Most of the apartments at The Link have three-pane, floor-to-ceiling windows, and the lobby has two bamboo groves. 

Kitchens have Poggenpohl cabinetry, Sub Zero refrigerators, Bosch dishwashers and cook tops and blue-stone countertops. 

Bathrooms have glassed showers and Neptune Zen soaking tubs with Duravit fixtures. 

Apartment 11J is a one-bedroom unit with an entry foyer near a 10-foot-long office and a 18-foot-long living/dining room with an open, pass-through kitchen. 

Apartment 6A is a one-bedroom unit that has an entry foyer opposite an enclosed kitchen and a 17-foot-long living/dining room. 

Apartment 37B is a two-bedroom unit that has an entry foyter that leads to a pass-through kitchen with a 10-foot-wide breakfast area and a 20-foot-long living/dining room. 

Penthouse A is a duplex with a entry on the upper level that leads to a 21-foot-long living/dining room with an open kitchen with an island and a 17-foot-long terrace and on the lower level there are three bedrooms.

History

The building entered a partnership with Troy to offer residents 26- or 30-piece furniture suites at a cost of $65,000 or $79,000 for their apartments. 

The Link is on the former site of the low-rise SIR Studios Building that was purchased in 2005 for about $43 million by the Elad Properties from Vikram Chatwal's Hampshire Hotel Group, which owned the Howard Johnson Hotel abutting the site. The sale included air-rights from the hotel. 

It is two blocks to the north of World Wide Plaza, the full-block, mixed-use development on the former site of Madison Square Garden by the Zeckendorf Organization that pioneered the renaissance of the avenue in the late 1980s. The pyramid-topped office tower of that complex remains the most dominant building on the avenue but it took well over a decade for its influence to bear fruit. 

First came the angled reflective-glass-clad hotel designed by Arquitectonica on the northeast corner at 42nd Street, then the new Hearst Tower designed by Sir Norman Foster on the southwest corner at 57th Street that was completed in 2006, then the new New York Times Building designed by Richard Rogers on the southeast corner at 41st Street that topped out in 2006. 

The long vacant east blockfront on the avenue between 41st and 42nd Street was acquired in 2006 from the Milstein family by SJR Properties and Prudential Real Estate Advisors for the construction of a 40-story office tower designed by FXFowle, the architectural firm that designed many of the large office towers at the south end of Times Square.

Meanwhile, several new apartment towers sprouted in the 50s along the avenue and several more were announced in 2006 for the 40s. 

The Link's site is to the west of the former Howard Johnson Hotel that fronts on the avenue and is known now as a Hampton Inn.