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"That's a fantastic budget. It'd be a hell of a thing," said Stefan Boublil, owner of swanky SoHo design firm The Apartment. "It's an expensive kitchen."
The pricey kitchen upgrade is only a small part of a $4.3 million overhaul of the four-story Sutton Place manse where Kofi Annan has lived rent-free for a decade.
And that's not the whole cost.
Ban Ki Moon, the South Korean diplomat due to succeed Annan on Jan. 1, will spend his first nine months in a Manhattan hotel at an additional cost of $202,500 so workers can tackle the job.
The UN General Assembly adopted the renovation plan last week.
Despite its handsome brick exterior and posh riverfront location, the home hasn't had any serious work done since 1950 and has deteriorated into a crumbling firetrap, according to documents obtained by the Daily News.
The plumbing is leaking, the plaster walls are falling apart and the electrical system keeps overloading - costing $60,000 a year in emergency fixes, Annan complained recently.
The massive upgrade includes a $2.1 million heating and cooling system, $650,000 security improvements and even $100,000 in landscaping.
The cost of the heating and cooling system "sounds extraordinarily high to me," said Sean Dineen of Dineen Construction Co. in Brooklyn.
"I'm doing a renovation of an entire brownstone in Park Slope for $1.7 million," he added.