Lawsuit Seeks to Block “Monstrous” Sutton Place Condo Tower

Refusing to yield quietly, a group calling itself the East River Fifties Alliance has filed a desperation lawsuit attempting to block construction of a “monstrous” 800-foot luxury condo tower at 430 East 58th Street near Sutton Place, Crain’s reports.

This could be the last stand in a long war. Early in the development of the tower, known as Sutton 58, the East River Fifties Alliance advanced a rezoning plan that caps building heights in the area. The group’s goal was to push through the changes before Sutton 58’s developer, Gamma Real Estate, completed the foundation work, which would have ensured enforcement of the height cap. Under city law, a project can potentially elude rezoning laws if excavation is complete and there is “substantial progress made on the foundations” when the rezoning goes into effect. In June, the Board of Standards and Appeals (BSA) granted Gamma such an exemption from the rezoning. Construction, which had been halted, was allowed to resume. 

That triggered the new lawsuit. It argues that the BSA improperly gave Gamma Real Estate six additional months to complete its foundation and be grandfathered into the old zoning rules. In particular, the suit alleges that the board failed to do an independent review of the development, and Gamma skirted construction rules to complete as much of its foundation as possible before the new zoning took effect in late December. 

The suit asks for a judge to stop construction on the tower and ensure that anything built on the site in the future is in compliance with the new zoning. 

In an earlier statement, the neighborhood alliance referred to Sutton 58 as “this monstrous, out-of-place megatower.” The statement made no mention of the fact that the Sovereign, a 47-story co-op tower, has sat directly across the street from the Sutton 58 construction site since 1975.