![](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/d189a3077966acfcd72600e921ec9ccccd-extell-abc.rhorizontal.w700.png\")
<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
\n Extell is looking to build a supertall on top of ABC\u2019s old New York campus on the Upper West Side.
\n Photo: Google Maps\n <\/p>\n
Extell is planning a tower the size of the Empire State Building somewhere between West 66th and West 67th,\u00a0and Tony Danza is upset. The actor, who has lived in Lincoln Square for more than two decades<\/a>, says he can see what will soon be a construction pit from his two-bedroom apartment and has been calling every city official he can to try and stop the tower from going up. \u201cI don\u2019t understand why the whole neighborhood isn\u2019t out in the streets and furious about it,\u201d he tells me. \u201cIt\u2019s going to impact the neighborhood for probably the next four or five years, and then after that, it\u2019ll shade the park and be this ugly glass tower.\u201d<\/p>\n Danza is right that the proposed 1,200-foot tower is a good bit different than most of what\u2019s around it. (For reference, the current tallest tower, which was also built by Extell, is 775 feet.) The site in question, a stretch\u00a0from Columbus Avenue to Central Park West, is the former home of ABC\u2019s New York campus, which you\u2019ll likely remember for Eyewitness News studio at the corner of West 66th. In 2018, Disney was eyeing a move downtown<\/a> and sold off its holdings along the block to Silverstein Properties, which in turn later sold 77 West 66th Street and 54 West 67th Street to Extell<\/a> for $931 million. (Extell also owns<\/a> the air rights from surrounding properties.) As for the matter of how very tall this new building is meant to be: Notably here, the land Extell bought doesn\u2019t fall<\/a> under the Lincoln Square Special District<\/a> zoning regulations, owing to an amendment made by the the City Planning Commission back in 1993 to lure ABC to the neighborhood. It is, in the words of one community advocate I spoke with, \u201ca block of the Upper West Side that has midtown zoning.\u201d The current zoning also doesn\u2019t require any kind of affordable housing. All of this likely made the lot incredibly appealing to Extell, which has been on a roll with supertalls including One57<\/a> on Billionaires\u2019 Row and the planned Torch<\/a> in Times Square.<\/p>\n Obviously, people other than beloved television actors got upset about Extell\u2019s plan to build up, up, up. There are roughly two camps to the opposition: the no-way faction that doesn\u2019t want any kind of supertall on the Upper West Side, period. Then there are the types like Seema Reddy, co-chair of Community Board 7\u2019s Housing and Land Use committee, who while not exactly a fan of the incoming Extell tower, tells me she\u2019d tolerate a shadow-casting behemoth if it means additional affordable housing<\/a> for the neighborhood. \u201cIt\u2019s desperately needed,\u201d she says. In May, Extell\u2019s Gary Barnett appeared<\/a> at a community-board committee meeting in a black jacket and T-shirt to present his company\u2019s plans for the incoming supertall. It wasn\u2019t that long ago that construction finally topped out at Extell\u2019s Sn\u00f8hetta-designed 50 West 66th Street \u2014 which currently holds the crown for height in the neighborhood. With that project, he explained, Extell faced serious pusbhack<\/a>. Construction ended up dragging on for years<\/a> owing to legal<\/a> challenges<\/a>, which, per Barnett\u2019s estimate, ended up costing tens of millions of dollars that \u201ccould have been better spent on something else.\u201d This time, he said, \u201cI\u2019m not interested in a fight.\u201d He wanted peace.<\/p>\n By summer, that peace offering officially arrived: Extell would voluntarily build affordable apartments in two mid-block buildings amounting to 20 percent of the total number of new condo units he was planning for the supertall. That effectively meant 121 affordable apartments, with the vast majority being studios for seniors. But\u00a0Gale Brewer, the city councilmember representing District 6, wants 30 percent affordable \u2014\u00a0the equivalent of the city\u2019s Mandatory Inclusionary Housing<\/a> program. And at a meeting earlier this month, the community board more or less echoed the demand with a resolution that also called on Extell to make most of the affordable units family-size\u00a0two bedrooms. In something of a Hail Mary, the community board even included a call for the city to upzone the parcel. Through a process called ULURP, the resolution is asking for the city to allow Extell to build an even-taller tower but also require the developer to build far more affordable housing than what he\u2019s offered so far. (Extell hasn\u2019t responded to a request for comment or, so far, the community board\u2019s resolution, but Barnett has previously\u00a0said he won\u2019t entertain a 30 percent ask: \u201cIf that\u2019s the starting point, I\u2019m not sitting down.\u201d)<\/p>\n So far, the city hasn\u2019t intervened on any of the larger zoning questions and it\u2019s clear that given what\u2019s in place right now, Barnett has the power to do what he wants. (\u201cI take Gary\u2019s word that he\u2019d walk away,\u201d one person familiar with the negotiations tells me.) But Brewer thinks there are other reasons Extell might consider staying at the table. Barnett \u201chas lots of other projects he wants to do, so he\u2019s going to need the city for future development,\u201d she tells me. (Plus, she adds, \u201cI\u2019m pretty good at winning.\u201d) As for Tony Danza, he may have his own nuclear option if the tower moves forward as planned: move to Los Angeles. \u201cMy daughter just had a baby girl,\u201d he says. \u201cSo maybe something\u2019s calling me to come back to L.A.\u201d<\/p>\n Sign Up for the Curbed Newsletter<\/p>\n A daily mix of stories about cities, city life, and our always evolving neighborhoods and skylines.<\/p>\n Vox Media, LLC Terms and Privacy Notice<\/p>\n