Flatiron Building to become luxury residential tower

The iconic Flatiron Building will be converted into luxury residences.

Photo via Getty Images

Manhattan’s iconic Flatiron Building will be converted into a luxury residential tower, its new owners announced on Thursday.

The development team of the Brodsky Organization, the Sorgente Group, and the Gural family’s GFP Real Estate plan to start shoring up permits early next year to convert the 22-story, wedge-shaped tower into a residential space, after the building sat vacant for years and was the subject of a highly-publicized bidding war.

The Flatiron is perhaps the city’s most notable office building to undergo a post-COVID conversion to residences as white-collar workers embrace remote work. Since the 120-year-old building is a New York City landmark, the developers will need the approval of the city’s Landmarks Preservation Commission before proceeding.

“The Flatiron is an iconic New York City building and The Brodsky Organization is very proud to join our partners at The Sorgente Group and GFP Real Estate in preserving this landmark property,” said Daniel Brodsky, CEO of the Brodsky Organization. “We believe that the Flatiron Building is well suited for residences and we look forward to working with the City and the Landmarks Preservation Commission on this exciting opportunity.”

It’s not clear how many residences will be built in the new Flatiron Building, nor whether they will be rentals or condominiums.

The tower, located at the corner of 23rd Street, Broadway, and 5th Avenue, was designed by prominent turn-of-the-century architect Daniel Burnham and completed in 1902, becoming Manhattan’s tallest building north of Union Square at the time. Like so many other Big Apple buildings, critics initially scoffed at the edifice, but it has since become so iconic that the surrounding neighborhood is now ubiquitously referred to as Flatiron.

Sorgente, an Italian real estate firm, purchased a controlling stake in the building in 2008 and…