Kushners Aim To Make Flagship Building Second-Tallest In NYC

By Daniel J. Solomon March 22, 2017

Kushner Companies, the real estate powerhouse that owns properties throughout the New York metro area, has been planning to remake its Fifth Avenue headquarters for some time. But according to the latest reports, the renovations could be far more ambitious than previously thought, adding extra floors and a hotel to the office tower.

Under the confirmed plans, the Fifth Avenue building would be expanded by 40 floors, adding hundreds of thousands more square feet of retail space, room for a full-scale hotel and an apartment complex with condos selling for around $6,000 per square foot. Expected to take place over the next eight years, the project would make the Kushner property the second-tallest building in New York City behind the Freedom Tower in the World Trade Center. Kushner Companies is also planning to change the building’s address from “666,” which some see as a symbol of the devil, to “660.”

Jared Kushner purchased the property a decade ago when he was in charge of Kushner Companies. Now a senior White House adviser, Kushner has left the business and sold off his stake in the building to a family trust in order to avoid conflicts of interest. Concerns about such a conflict of interest were raised when it was revealed that the Anbang Insurance Company, a Chinese state-owned enterprise, would have a hand in the deal.

Contact Daniel J. Solomon at solomon@forward.com or on Twitter @DanielJSolomon

Daniel J. Solomon is the former Assistant to the Editor/News Writer at the Forward. Originally from Queens, he attended Harvard as an undergraduate, where he wrote his senior thesis on French-Jewish intellectual history. He is excited to have returned to New York after his time in Massachusetts. Daniel’s passions include folk music, cycling, and pointed argument.

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