Newsday (Nassau Edition) from Hempstead, New York • 63

1 a CTcEgsoILargD TmaX3C3 A Skyscraper He Has a Sheldon Solow finds a home for his 50-story six years in land By Dennis Duggan Newsduy National Business Editor For almost six yearn Sheldon Solow worked in land" putting together a chunk of land just a few feet away from Fifth Avenue and 57th Street moat valuable piece of real estate in the On it lie in now erecting a graceful travertine marble and glass office building that will soar 50 stories into the generally unhealthy air Solow is a little-known entrepreneur whose achievement is all the more remarkable because he is not a Ur is or a Tishman But then neither is his building It is a real honest-to-God piece of architecture designed by Gordon Bunshaft of Skidmore Owing Merrill and its tenants will pay the price which is to say they will pay- more than they would for space in a Uris or Tishman wedding-cake Solow is a tall trim forty-one-year bachelor who wears his hair hippie style and still regards his undertaking with a touch of awe he ays say to myself oh When Solow refers to he is talking about tlie odds against any New York builder stitching together a collection of properties into one site big enough on which to erect a major office Iniilding tough enough to do so in the back alleys on the far west or cast sides but to do it in window is quite a trick Solow confesses he used to walk around in the dead of night wondering wlien someone would get wise and me That's a term builders use for property owners who become holdouts when tliey get wind that someone wants their land There have been several famous holdouts and some of them have reduced billionaire builders to' tears insisting on their right to operate a drug store a hot-dog stand or a clothing simp just where tlie frustrated builder envisioned a meaningful lobby But Solow managed to collect seventeen separate parcels with only one shopkeeper becoming slightly suspicous settled with him in a Solow says heard the Ford Motor Company was going to put up an office rliie 61 H0(-square-foot site cost Solow $12000000 to assemble and Rome real estate men say the value lias since soared to around $25000000 The building itself will cost over $45000000 to build and will Ixi completed by tlie end of next year llad secret leaked out there would probably never have lieen an office building There are soine sliopkeeiers in tlie 57th Street area who still regard the oncoming tower with something of tlie relish of a visit from tlie Jukes family Solow who comes by the building profession through liis father wlto was a masonry contractor recalls tlie moments when he thought the building might never come to pass In fact lie had to compromise his original plan for planting the structure right on Fifth Avenue at 57th Street But Andrew How 50-story tower will look flanked by Bergdorf Goodman's on the right and the Plaza Hotel at the rear Sheldon Solow right surveys the site earlier this year bring them intangible returns such as prestige and a desirable location exactly why Avon Products decided' at the last minute to ditch its plans to locate its Rockefeller Center offices in a new building on Avenue of the Americas Solow went calling on board of directors and convinced them to lease twenty floors of Goodman president of Bergdorf Goodman the specialty store on the site refused to sell Goodman almost decided to sell to Solow and to relocate his store in space in the office building met him at his apartment over the store (a 14-room luxury residence where Goodman resides) and made several different proposals In the end I think it was the apartment and the fact that he had a view of space his unborn tower at a price Central Park that decided him against selling the' above the $6 to $7 a square foot they were prepared to property to says Solow pay for the Avenue of Americas office space Avon even have the privilege of having the tower named after itself Solow is planning a logo iterations Cloaked in Secrecy But using dummy corporations several different lawyers five brokers and cloaking his land-gathering in CIA-style secrecy Solow managed to acquire the land for what he Bays become one of the most important office buildings in the So the question arises why bother putting up a structure that offers more than just space for corporations to keep their filing cabinets from getting wet? Solow concedes that part of the answer involves his ego think a building is an image of If true there are many New York builders who look at themselves with the self-approval of say Racquet Welch But Solow casting his bread on the water expecting it to come back soggy I make a profit? Oh be How profitable Solow divulge He believes though that American corporations will pay an extreme price if convinced that what paying for will that will bear his name and address 9 57th Street Avon will have to settle for a plaque to be placed in the lobby For the estimated $8000000 a year rent Avon will pay for its 560000 square feet some companies would have insisted the building resemble their board wife but Solow says it was the design alone that won the Avon executives over That and the three precepts that Solow says most real estate executives live by: (1) location (2) location and (3) location location demanded a quality building and what it will ovyn offices are located in the bronze Seagram Building on Park Avenue a building he calls greatest building in the Solow says he talked to such eminent architects as Kevin Roche John Dinkeloo and Jack Daniels who runs Mies van der office in Chicago He finally settled on Bunshaft of Skidmore Owings Merrill he could give me the kind of building I Solow obtained most of his financing from the Chase Manhattan Bank with an assist from the Irving Trust Company He is no stranger to these lending institutions since he has been putting up buildings of one kind or another since 1952 These include a 72-family garden apartment complex in Far Rockaway and an apartment tower at York Avenue and 87th Street one of whose two bedroom apartments rents for $1000 a month And though been preoccupied with his West 57th Street edifice also had time to put together a store at Second Avenue and 66th Street for a new apartment building 5-Year Pact for Penn Central Chief Philadelphia (UPI) William If Moore diosen to put the ailing Penn Central Itailroad back on the financial track was given a five-year contract yesterday at $165000 a year The 54-year-old Moore known as a railroad executive will take over Sept 1 as president and chief executive officer of the Penn Central now in reorganization Moore was executive vice president for operations of the Southern Railway system when he was chosen by 'the trustees on Aug 12 to guide the giant lYnn Central back to financial health He promptly predicted that he would have the carrier running in' the black four or five years possibly even sooner" six-figure annual salary over the next five years was approved yesterday by US District Judge John Fullam judicial overseer of the Penn Central reorganization He acted at the request of the four trustees Moore succeeds Paul A Gorman the former $250000-a-year chief of the railroad who retired Aug 11 at an annual pension of $12000 I' Friday August 21 1970.