Quote:
Originally Posted by scalziand
The cramped observation decks on the 86th and 102nd floors are startlingly profitable, especially during the holiday season, when tourists swarm the city.
The decks attract four million visitors a year and generated $60 million in profits in 2010, while the owners made little if any money on the office space, according to newly disclosed documents that offer a rare glimpse at the building’s balance sheet.
The financial results at the Empire State Building illustrate how observatories, once considered a modest sideline and a pleasant diversion, have become big business for owners seeking to wring every dollar out of office towers around the world.
Top of the Rock, the observatory at 30 Rockefeller Plaza in Manhattan, reopened six years ago after a long dormancy and now pulls in 2.5 million visitors a year and a $25 million profit, according to real estate executives who have been briefed on the project.
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Look, I think we've beaten this to death but I clearly said the cost including additional costs to create the spaces, not just to operate them (which is pretty minimal). The 2 buildings you mention are over 70 years old--the Empire State once had an airship docking port too. And the NYT article is written from a document intended to sell the building and taking a positive perspective to its features.
I've been to the observation deck at the Empire State and, as I recall, it has at least one dedicated elevator (maybe more than one; maybe originally to carry airship passengers). This either detracts from access to rented floors by diminshing the elevators servicing paying tenants or it adds to costs and cuts income by enlarging the building core for dedicated elevators.
The article you quoted says "Five high-speed express elevators are expected to whisk five million visitors a year to a three-level observatory on Floors 100 through 102 (of WTC1). I wonder if the Salesforce Tower or Oceanwide Center will have 5 elevators total (probably but not many more than that). And WTC1 is a unique, world famous (thanks to 9/11) building in a city with a much larger number of visitors than San Francisco.
It's all in the accounting. What you and the article seem to be counting is mostly cash flow not counting additional building costs and loss of rentable space (if you think otherwise, show me the actual accounting numbers). But the bottom line is that if there were money to be made by the building owners, you can bet at least one building in San Francisco would have one. These people are in business to make money--they are not ALL going to pass on a profit center if decks here could be one. And recall that we have had several--all closed for a reason. It just doesn't seem to work here. None of us know enough to entirely understand why. But it doesn't whether it's primarily the security issue, the money or something else.
I'm done and bored. We'll get a deck one day or we won't. I don't think we will.