Retrofit Installation at Award Winning "The Heritage" begins September

Empire Building Challenge Award Winner

Beginning at 59th St., the most celebrated stretch of New York’s Fifth Avenue—the leafy, museum-studded gambol on the east side of Central Park—runs two-and-a-half miles to the north, stopping at 110th St in Harlem. At either end, its course is marked by a pair of major buildings: downtown, it’s the Plaza Hotel, one of the city’s most recognizable landmarks; uptown, it’s The Heritage.

Though less familiar to the average tourist, the three-tower, 600-unit complex on at the corner of Central Park North is every bit as essential to its urban surrounds as its more famous pendant in Midtown. And now, thanks to DEXTALL, one major chunk of The Heritage will receive an exterior refurbishment worthy of its location: its eastern flank, 1660 Madison, is about to undergo a major overhaul, with the old bush-hammered brick façade replaced by a sleek new skin of DEXTALL prefabricated panels.  

Originally built in 1974, the 11-story property was constructed under the Michell-Lama program to provide moderately-priced housing on the periphery of one of Manhattan’s most expensive residential districts. In 2018, the property was acquired by regional real-estate giant L+M Development Partners as part of a multi-building deal that would entail extensive renovations as well the preservation of below-market units, ensuring middle-income tenants remain in their homes while significantly improving the conditions in which they lived. To do it, the team at L+M turned to the exterior specialists at DEXTALL, marking the first stage in a projected $2.2M partnership between the two companies.  

Richard Weinstock, Vice Chairman and Senior Partner at L+M, explains the choice of DEXTALL as a pragmatic response to the particular challenges of the project, as well as a solution that fits with his company’s broader strategy in the neighborhood. 

“Once we sat down and started talking about pricing, that’s when the particular advantages of DEXTALL started to come into focus—it’s very appealing from that standpoint,” says Weinstock. “Meanwhile, the building had this split-block façade, which was popular in the 1970s but has a certain stigma attached to it now. We wanted not just to repurpose the building, but to reposition it in the market.” For both practical and marketing purposes, DEXTALL provided L+M with a silver (or, rather, aluminum) bullet. 

DEXTALL’s all-in-one insulation and cladding package guarantees L+M a greener, more efficient building, reducing energy consumption and helping tenants and management reduce their collective carbon footprint. In order to cut construction costs and meet the structural challenges of the aging building, DEXALL engineers opted for a “hybrid” approach, combining the company’s D-Wall 1500 product with Exterior Insulation Finishing System (EIFS); the tailored solution was made possible through the flexibility of DEXTALL’s proprietary design and procurement process, with a comprehensive, easy-to-use digital platform driving the project from concept to completion in a seamless logistical flow.   

While preserving and enhancing the building for generations of future occupants, DEXTALL’s fast and easy installation also means minimum disruption to those currently living at 1660—and once the panels are up, tenants will be even more comfortable, thanks to the panels’ superior acoustic and thermal performance. At the same time, the attractive, contemporary look of the new DEXTALL exterior will lend The Heritage an urban presence that’s bound to attract the attention of locals and visitors alike, finally giving the northern end of Fifth Avenue its due. As a foretaste of the future collaboration between L+M and DEXTALL, the Heritage seems like an augur of great things to come, not just for East Harlem but for the construction industry as a whole.

“The field is very slow to adapt to change,” says L+M’s Richard Weinstock. “We’re hoping this starts to move the needle.”