Designer Elie Tahari has spent 12 years lining up permits to expand his penthouse at 860 Fifth Avenue, and now he’s looking for an investor to join the project for $35 million.
The fashion guru has finally secured permission from the city’s Landmarks Preservation Commission and the Department of Buildings, and just started construction on the project, reported the Wall Street Journal. Once completed, the designer and his partner plan to sell the penthouse or one would buy out the other’s interest.
Tahari tapped CookFox Architects to design the glassy addition, which will give the penthouse a total of 7,500 square feet, plus 5,500 square feet of terrace space. “It’s almost like you’re dropping an Apple store on a co-op building on the Upper East Side,” said Town Residential’s Benjamin Benalloul, who is representing the offering with Loretta Shanahan-Bradbury and Victoria Terri-Cote.
Plans call for a master suite on the top level, as well as an outdoor kitchen for entertaining on the roof deck.
The designer bought his first apartment for $325,000 in 1979. He paid another $4.2 million for a neighboring unit in 2011. Tahari, who owns a $25 million condo at 15 Central Park West, recently listed his Hamptons estate for $45 million . [WSJ] — E.B. Solomont