No, they weren't.

What does a hurricane have to do with relative building heights? That doesn't even make any sense.

Well, it actually does. Look what happened to One57.


http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/09/re...ewanted=2&_r=1

Looking Down on the Empire State

By JULIE SATOW
June 7, 2013

The above citation is no more than a 50-50 split of somewhat decontextualized journalism and sheer conjecture whose combined main points have been argued ad nauseam here.
We get what we get with final height figures; and come the next superstorm that barrels through MidTown Manhattan, we get what we get if any damage occurs.
Now someone help me get this overbludgeoned horse corpse out of the way. :)

I don't understand how you come to that strange conclusion based on that quote.

Extell said the height for 225 W57th has not been finalized. They never said that hurricanes will determine the height of 225 W 57.

And hurricanes had nothing to do with One57's height.

Are you referring to the dangling crane following the hurricane? That is the only relevant link between One57 and Sandy. What I'm wondering, though, is why you think hurricanes would impact building height.

I am not saying hurricanes determine height of the building. I was referring to NY Times article and the damaged crane on One57 after Sandy. The article states that Mr. Barnett might take this incident into consideration when determining final height of the tower. That's it.

I just hope they will not make this building shorter, whatever the reason.

Relax. The article said Barnett was taking those things (time and uncertainty added by height) into consideration. Barnett says there were times when he had development rights, and didn't use all of them. So what does that mean? Absolutely nothing. Fun fact: Barnett could use less air rights and build taller than planned. But I'm sure Barnett will build every developable square foot he can. This is prime Manhattan, those air rights aren't just going to be lying around. (Besides, they've recently expanded the lot a little, adding size). As far as a hurricane cutting the height of the tower, if you think One57 - at 1,005 ft was affected by one, what makes you think a tower of 1,400 - 1,300 - or even 1,100 ft wouldn't be?

Let's just say that the design isn't final, and we'll get more specifics when the design is revealed. For now, it is what it is.

It won't matter that much for the east-west views, as the buildings are not that wide. Look at the sample views from 432 Park (at the building website) of various elevations to see what I mean. And wherever the tower of 225 W 57th is placed on its plot, neither building would block the other's view of the Park, which is paramount.

But I do think that Extell will try to place the tower portion of 225 W 57th more towards 58th Street, as this would somewhat alleviate the loss of Park views due to the construction of 220 CPS, which is currently listed as 577 feet.

Barnett knows that 220 CPS is coming eventually, so this is a reason for him to go for maximum height on 225 W 57. Right now, if the 1,550-foot figure turns out to be indeed be the height of the highest occupied floor, Extell would have 973 feet of occupy-able space above the 577-foot height of 220 CPS (minus any part of 220 CPS above the listed height, such as mechanical floors or an architectural cap).

We don't know the height of 220 CPS, though, because the old height was from a previous design from 5-6 years ago, and they have long since added significant additional air rights and changed architects.

My guess is that 220 CPS will be very tall and thin, since that's what all the towers are doing in that part of Manhattan. I would expect it to be comparable in height to the other towers.

How tall?
 

I read an article in Icon magazine about Adrian Smith, who said that the height of 225 West 57th Street would be 366m, not the original 472m.

Have any official rendering actually been released yet?

You are confusing this tower with 111 West 57th Street, which will be at least 1,200ft / 366m tall.

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7442/9...1f502552_b.jpg



http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2845/9...d0eed4fe_b.jpg



http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3730/9...b77d2208_b.jpg



http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5332/9...9a344315_b.jpg



http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3796/9...3f7a58c3_b.jpg



http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3712/9...a9cd2bda_b.jpg



http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3669/9...725a0cab_b.jpg

^ Nice update...


He's talking about this piece from back in March...



Meanwhile, demo permit has been filed for the final piece, the Beethoven Pianos building...

http://a810-bisweb.nyc.gov/bisweb/Jo...ssdocnumber=01

Nobody knows the plans yet, of course. But I would imagine that the base (Nordstroms, etc.) would go as high as the old building that they're tearing down (as high as the cross bracing on the building next door). Then there might be an indentation to allow some space for the windows of the building next door to retain some amount of view. It's possible that the actual tower could be back from the street, similar to 432 Park Avenue.

I see, but I still wonder why Smith is referring to the 1200ft figure ... :shrug:

Thank you for all the updates ILNY, they are very much appreciated. :yes:

It should be a pretty good size. Didn't they say it would be the "tallest" Nordstrom?

Anyway, here are the plans again for a Nordstrom that could have been built, of similar size and layout...


http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5204/...6dc29cfa_b.jpg
http://massforma.com/arch/nordstrom-tower/



Who knows, it could very well have been the height at the time (remember, the designs are in flux) or it could be a different tower altogether. It could even be the height of the tower now. We'll know for certain when plans are adjusted, or renderings are revealed, which probably won't be any time soon.

It's definitely possible that it is referring to 111 w57th isn't it, though? Even though SHOP is the architect of record on that, AS+GG could be the design architect. Although, if that article came out in March, then I don't really know how that jives with the timeline for that building.

I don't think SHoP would be the architect of record on 111 w57th - I don't think they would want to be anything other than the design architect.

Anyway, it would be a shame if this building is reduced from 1,550 to 1,200 ft. However, at this point, I'm not going to lose any sleep over it.

The actual Nordstrom store will be 280'+ tall, so it will be about the same size as the adjacent building; I'd be surprised if there were setbacks for the store itself. It's going to be enormous.

I always had a sneaking suspicion 1550 was too tall for NYC. :shrug:

That would be first 1500+ footer in NYC, almost too good to be true.