Even better! They may run into Pennywise! :D

I know that a 1,400 footer today equals about 100 stories in the old days. Still, developers should use the correct floor count instead of "deceiving" the public. But don't get me wrong, I rather have a 70-story & 1,300ft tall tower instead of 100-story 1,100ft tower with extra small ceilings.

I say he's a realist. I trust in YIMBY too (great source and reliability) but this project has been a rollercoaster ride from the very beginning. If Barnett indeed decides to push this tower to new heights and surprise us with a dramatic design, than kudos to him. :worship:

What do you mean "if we're lucky". It will be at least that.



Let's hope it's a great design. We already know there will be great height. I'd be more impressed with the great design at this point. I want to be excited about this tower again, same as I am about the Tower Verre or 111 West 57th.



But they aren't "deceiving" the public. People conceive of height in very basic terms. The "adjusted" floor numbers are just keeping it simple.

It sure seems deceptive to me. People have a pretty good understanding of what constitutes a floor in a building. I'm sure that developers have some legal out, but it sure seems like false advertising to me to state a number of floors higher than the actual number just to sound more impressive. It's just plain lying if you ask me. If you want simple than just tell the simple truth.

^Agreed but keep in mind that foreign investors don't like specific numbers. I forget which numbers asian buyers don't like but they avoid some numbers.

They like eights and dislike fours. 8 is considered lucky, and the character for 4 is similar to death. BTW, imagine if the Roseland development had been expanded to include 888 8th Avenue with an 88 floor tower. Asian buyers would have been all over that.

I guess this is what you don't understand.

What people think of skyscrapers in terms of height is relative to floors (or "stories" if you like). Someone may be able to tell you, for example, that the Empire State or the World Trade towers had 100 floors or more. What almost no one short of the skyscraper-nerd brigade will tell you is that the Empire State is a 1,250 ft building, or that the Twin Towers were 1,368 and 1,362 ft. Someone may be able to tell you that the GE building is 70 stories. Ask them how tall it is in terms of feet (or meters, it hardly matters), and you'll get a blank stare.

Around here, we may throw around height figures casually, but most people not only don't care about such things, they wouldn't keep those figures in their heads anyway. You can tell someone that they will be overlooking a city from a vantage point of 800 ft, and they may find it acceptable. Tell them they'll be 70 stories up in the sky, and they immediately have a better sense of how high they will be. That's just the way it is. The most accessible form of identifiable height is by the number of floors (or stories).

Now if you as a developer know this, and the primary force driving such buildings is the upper floor height factor, you'd be foolish not to market the buildings that way. Trying to sell someone on 800, 900, or even 1,000 ft is nowhere near the same as 80, 90, or 100 floors. An apartment on the 62nd floor at 1,000 ft is not as impressive as one on the 90th floor at 900 ft. Think about it. These developers have, they know what they are doing.

There's nothing deceptive about it as long as the height is there to back it up. In other words, you couldn't sell a unit at 500 ft as the 90th floor. Now that would be wrong.

I understood you argument, I just disagree with it. Maybe it's because I'm an engineer so it seems silly to me to have a basic statistic of a building be wrong. If the developer wants to call the 75th floor the 90th floor because it is as high as the 90th floor on some other building then that might be OK. However, saying the building has 90 floors is different if it really only has 75. I can understand that most people don't know the actual heights of buildings or have a sense for what sort of height is "supertalls" verses just "tall", but I also think people subjectively know that WTC 1 and 2 were taller than the Empire State Building. More honest advertising for a supertall building would be to say something like, "100ft taller than the Empire State Building". It's a personal preference I guess, but it's kind like if I (as an electrical engineer) designed a generator and claimed a 180MW generator was 200MW because it was the same size as most 200MW generators.

Well, my explanation was lost on you I guess. Just keep in mind that most people are not engineers, they define height by the number of floors (stories). BTW, the same explanation goes with office towers as well. The developers can charge higher rents for those upper floors, and if you've put the extra effort and expenses into building that high, you'd better advertise it.

Not really, look what happened to Hudson Spire and the other HY tower, height reductions are so common for such big proposals that I think we'd be extremely lucky for this building to pass 432 park avenue.

I would guess this will be 12-1400' if we're lucky.

I hate to say it, but only a fool would go against what has already been stated by the developer.

And as for your nonsense about height reductions, 111 West 57th, 220 CPS, 1 Vanderbilt, it's just nonsense. Please keep it to yourself.

This is no nonsense, Zapatan is actually right. If you take all iconic super tall towers in NY (1100- 1400ft) ALL of them, except one (432 Park) got either reduced height or downgraded design.

1 WTC - downgraded spire and also downgraded plaza.
3 WTC -height reduction and downgraded design (removed cross beams)
Tower Verre - reduced hight
North Tower HY - reduced height
Hudson Spire - greatly reduced height.
225W - we don't even know the design, height was already reduced from 1550 to 1424 and might be reduced even more, we just don't know that yet.

Vanderbilt -its few years away, design and hight can change.

111 West - not under construction yet, who knows.

When I was taking pictures of 225 W few months ago, I met and had a conversation with a person who claimed to be co-architect of One57 and also ex-NY City commissioner. I did not post it here before because it was very pessimistic. To sum it up, that person stated that both 225 W and 111W will have significant height reductions. 225W because of politics and 111W because of engineering. I am not sure how much of this was based on facts that he knew and how much were his personal speculations but I will hold my breath until I see both towers under construction.

Not very inspiring

It's worth pointing out that the 1800' "Hudson Spire" was merely a marketing tool to get it sell for more than it would. YIMBY specifically stated that and it's true. That height figure was absurd anyway with almost 1.2 million or so square feet for one of the lots.

Basically, we never had a concrete number for this site in Hudson Yards.

^^^

Although at 2.6 million square ft, it will still be massive. Time will tell what the official height will be on that project.

I think we are getting a bit spoiled, including me. These days every major development seems to sprout a new supertall. It's only logical that we moan height cuts and / or design changes. With so many supertalls in the pipeline, everyone is expecting the one real signature tower (1600ft+ roof), which will elevate the skyline single-handedly.

Tower Verre is the only NY supertall that had reduced height. Every other one you listed, it wasn't the case. And you forgot to mention all the towers that had increasing height (including 432 Park, 107 W.57, One Vanderbilt).

"Downgraded design" is subjective, and every tower on earth has revisions, so I'm not going to comment on something that is just opinion.

To me at least, what does it say about the claims this "co-architect of One57" makes, since they basically deal with competition?

Unless this chap knows something deep within the bowels of the negotiations between the parties, and the shitload of politics that has already turned hat should've been this "iconic" tower's NYC housewarming party into a drizzling shitstorm, I know of no other reason than exceptionally misguided NIMBYism (i.e. even for them) why any other sort of politics to rear its head. Maybe there's been this seething vendetta amongst certain city departments of which none of os seem to be cogently aware; but this politics argument re Nordstroms seems a tad fishy.

As for the Steinway/111 57th talking point, he should just *be quiet and do some research on the great lengths ShoP has gone through in one public forum after another to reassure folks that they seem to know what the hell they're doing. Again, could it be this person trampling down the vintage of sour grapes against competition literally next door???
*I won't say STFU unless and until this person continues to make comments like those under discussion in this thread and thus begins to make a high-caliber PITA of himself.

And even if Norstrom and Steinway do meet the same fate Tower Verre did, and that's a long shot to beat all Hell, I believe we're still looking at 1,000+ towers.

By the way, neither building discussed here is likely to be shanked by value-engineering: Nordstroms because we haven't seen a real preliminary render and Steinway because people like Amanda Burden and Mr. Durst with his PA cronies aren't around to fuck things up. What's more, if the plan is to make the 57th St. corridor the richest urban drive the richest in the world outside of Dubai, why would that be within the realm of debate?

So will I; but this person's comments IMO reek of 50% envy and 50% being out of a few loops here and there.

I am not surprised about the Hudson Spire site. I had a feeling that the proposal shown was a marketing ploy and once Tishman Speyer scooped it up (who tends to be relatively conservative), I figured disappointment in the cards.

As for 225 W57 and 111 W57, I think the person quoted here knows about as much as anyone here. I think what happens on these sites remains to be seen.

PS: How do we even know of this alleged height reduction for HS when figures are still being thrown around like numbered ping-pong balls in a lotto machine? Let alone the fact what we have only Nikolai/YIMBY's preliminary to go on.