Demolition for Luxury Tower on Third Avenue Well Underway
The 61-unit condominium building, which is being spearheaded by Skyline Developers, is projected to be 34 stories tall. As of Jan. 22, three of the former low-rise buildings that it’ll be replacing on Third Ave. and East 80th St. had been ground into rubble.
| 23 Jan 2026 | 06:39
Demolition at the site of a future luxury tower on E. 80th St. seemed to be nearing completion on Thursday, Jan. 22. (
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The plot on Third Ave., where multiple low-rise buildings used to stand, as seen from across the street. (
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The corner of E. 80th and Third Ave. before four buildings purchased by the (
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Demolition appears to be nearing completion at the site of a future 34-story luxury skyscraper at 185 E. 80th St. at the corner of Third Ave. Our Town confirmed on Thursday, Jan. 22.
A pile of debris could be seen through the viewing ports placed at intervals along the site’s trademark-green construction walls, while construction workers milled about on temporary wood walkways. A crane swung overhead.
The buildings were acquired by Leonard Wilf for $50.1 million in 2022. Skyline, the developer on the project is headed by his son, Orin Wilf.
The demolition will eventually yield a tower that will soar to a height of 497 ft. It’s slated to contain 61 condos, and will feature 2,000 sq. ft. of ground-level retail space. This means there will only be one to three condos per floor. A final completion date has not been unveiled.
Amenities in the building, which are being designed by Robert A. M. Stern Architects (RAMSA), are set to include: a parking garage, a gym, a billiards room, a pet room, and a laundry room.
The demolition plans were first reported by Crain’s New York Business in March, 2025. By December, the demolition was underway, New York YIMBY noted.
The previous low-rise commercial businesses and the aparments on the site, which fronts Third. Ave., have since been demolished. The contractor listed for the site is Celtic Demolition NYC, which describes itself on its website as “one of the New York City area’s largest non-union demolition contractors, specializing in full building structural demolition.”
The rubble now includes the remains of the original home of Tiramisu, a 30-year-strong restaurant which has since moved to Second Ave, as well as an all-purpose crafts store that was known as The Source. A women’s shoe store, Diane B., also appears to have been knocked down along with a locksmith and a dry cleaning store.
Skyline Developers sealed the fate of these businesses back in 2022, when Leonard Wilf, father of Skyline CEO Orin Wilf, bought their buildings for $50.1 million The seller was Maria Armendariz,
Skyline, a spin-off of the New Jersey-based developer Garden Homes, already has a presence nearby; they erected the 19-story tower that stands at the corner of E. 79th St. and Third Ave., a mere block away, in 2011.
They also built a 19-story modernist tower located across from Carl Schurz Park, at 170 East End, in 2005. It contains 96 apartments.
Most notably, Skyline owns the Rockefeller Townhouses, the twin five-story mansions—located at 13 and 15 W. 54th St.—that were home to the one-and-only Standard Oil magnate John D. Rockefeller (as well as his son David) for over 40 years.
According to a 2005 article in the New York Times, Skyline purchased the historic townhouses for $41 million back in 2004. At the time, the paper notes that Skyline founder Orin Wilf was “refurbishing them as his company’s New York offices (his personal office is the room where Nelson A. Rockefeller died of a heart attack in 1979).”
Landmarked in 1981, the Rockefeller Townhouses currently serve as commercial buildings, with the restaurant Il Gettapardo operating out of the ground floor.
As for RAMSA—the architect responsible for designing the new tower at 185 E. 80th St.—they’re also responsible for designing another 35-story luxury condo tower at 200 E. 83rd St., which was developed by Naftali Group and opened in 2023.