[NYguy]

https://www.cityrealty.com/nyc/marke...anhattan/42121

Skyline Tower set for December 2020 closings; Chat with Stephen Hill on the making of NYC's tallest building outside of Manhattan





By CityRealty Staff
Tuesday, November 17, 2020

Have any alternate designs been considered at any point?

Stephen: The original design for this building was 125-130 feet taller than the tower is now. We have to submit our diagrams to the Federal Aviation Authority for aircraft avoidance lights at the top of the building. This is the first time that we've ever had them not approve the initial documents because this came at the time when they were redesigning LaGuardia, looking to quadruple the number of flights in and out of the airport over ten years, so they needed more go-around space to divert flights.

There was a bit of back-and-forth between the whole team and the FAA, and we were all happy with the results. They initially wanted quite a bit more than a 130-foot reduction, but this is the number we all landed on with the help of all the consultants involved in the project. We weren't particularly happy about while it was going on, but looking back on it now, it actually improved the tower in several respects. It's the same amount of floor area, so the tower’s a little stockier now, but it also made the building less costly and more efficient with the same floor area on fewer floors.

Now the building stands 778 feet to the top of the topmost building maintenance unit (BMU), and slightly lower to parapet tip. The L shape of the tower really came into being during the redesign. The L shape helped the lateral forces, the lateral configuration - the stiffer it became, the L shape made it stiffer. The setback was much lower than where it sets back now, somewhere in the 50's floors.We worked on the details of the facade and to trim the girl and dresser as well as we could, and we're all very proud of the design.