A real estate operator named Leonard Gans believed there was a market for middle-class apartments within walking distance of the terminal, and that Prospect Hill was an advantageous location for it. He persuaded Paine Edson, a long-time employee of The Fred F. French Company, successful developers of both office and residential buildings, who convinced Fred French himself. With Gans's help, the company quickly acquired nearly a hundred properties. On December 18, 1925, French announced plans for a large residential development on Prospect Hill to serve that market – in Dolkart's words, "a complex of apartment houses and residence hotels that would be so convenient, well-planned, well-built, and well-priced that middle-class families and single people would be more attracted to these Manhattan buildings than to houses or apartments in the outer boroughs or the suburbs."