NEW YORK | 200 Greenwich - 2 WTC | 1,226 FT | 55 FLOORS

[chris08876]

It hasn't started rising yet. Waiting for the Fox deal to finalize. Its essentially a done deal. Sometime this year we should start to see it rise. I'm hoping Q2.


Credit: Thomas_Koloski

[Valyrian Steel]

Hadn't checked on this project in months... Yikes, I loved the old design. This design is not terrible on it's own, but given its height and high profile, I find it be very underwhelming.

[jbermingham123]

Originally Posted by eclipse

Hadn't checked on this project in months... Yikes, I loved the old design. This design is not terrible on it's own, but given its height and high profile, I find it be very underwhelming.

welcome to the club

[NYguy]

Originally Posted by CoolCzech

The north tower "blocked" the view of the original WTC's observatory. I think the parapet of 2 WTC will be at the same height as the new obsevatory, reproducing the spectacular effect of having another huge tower looming directly across from the observer. A good thing.

Depends on what the final height is, but either way you should get an eyefull of towers 2 and 3. Still only a portion of the view.

But better yet, tower 2 will offer views of its own. I can imagine the screenings they will have up there.

[chris08876]

Ill just post this for the record, but a user thats an insider (he has a lot of interior shots of the PATH oculus and has access to areas that public doesn't), and he wrote this...

Good and bad news on this building, which you guys want first

Response after that post was:

Yo i got some 2wtc news.. good and bad.. so which one u want first?Ok before I tell u.. this info came directly from the lead foreman. . No rumor or speculation. Got it? Ok so 2 wtc has had some major structural design changes agian.. nobody on the outside knows yet. Well the foundation is getting demolished and redone. Yea down into the basements. Because of core design changes. There's a weird setback in the upper floors that needs foundation changes. Also new column placments are needed for building weight support.. but we knew that already. The bad..Its gonna be another year of foundation work before any core or steel rise. All this news hurt man.. i was anxious for this to rise.. and now another year has to go by before any real progress is done. 3 wtc will be fully topped out before 2 gets off the ground.

That's every reply copied and pasted in our conversation

This being the copied transcript between him and the guy who knows the lead foreman.

[ATLksuGUY]

Originally Posted by chris08876

This being the copied transcript between him and the guy who knows the lead foreman.

Ouch..... That — but thanks for bringing the word Chris.

[ILNY]

Originally Posted by chris08876

Ill just post this for the record, but a user thats an insider (he has a lot of interior shots of the PATH oculus and has access to areas that public doesn't), and he wrote this...

Quote:

This is a great news! I never liked this design and do not mind waiting another year for something better.

I am surprised they are going with foundation changes, that must cost a lot of extra money. I guess they really want Fox to move in.

[Prezrezc]

Nope. No way is this design changing unless they shitcan BIG altogether.
IMO from what I can glean it's simply a matter of reconfiguring the base of the structure to accommodate at least one of the cantilevers above.
I'd rather wait another year or so to have them deal with this than to sit thru an indefinite period of time watching yet another starchitect brought in and wait for an interminable number of render teasers, thank you.

[HiRiser]

Originally Posted by spc fan

Has the building started actual construction yet? On google earth, I still see foundation works. Nice design, though I think the original 2006 one looks prettier. Just as Chris 08876 said, we HAVE to acept this even If you do not like it. This might be the final design. Well, this design looks like blocks stacked together, I think, and looks like the CoC complex in Moscow. Rather something like — (or mabye not).

Why not stay the course with the original truncated top. Shows great strength. Like this Kasikorn HQ building (1995) in Bangkok

Credit: http://thairath.co.th/media

http://www.thairath.co.th/media/NjpUs24nCQKx5e1HUlz7lDqG2aCF7HMQfMwEtWhRweP.jpg

[Prezrezc]

Again, there's the matter of the similarity to this with Chicago's Stone Building; so it's not precisely a design template of earth-shattering kaboom magnitude.
Plus, they'd have to undo whatever progress they might've made to return the footprint of this tower to it's unadorned hexagonal form.
Besides and anyhow, I think it's been said that the footprint now in place wouldn't have fit the demands of the anchor tenant being courted.
So design wise, it's a matter of "been there, done that", and tenant wise, it's up to the target audience, as it were, to call the shots...as it were.

[timpdx]

Not in the least bit surprising to hear the foundation is a total redo. I was waiting for that shoe to drop.

[Arm&Kedzie]

Looks like a drunk tower of boxes photo bombed the party. Really this tower is very out of place.

[davidinasia]

Thank you, Chris for the information... that's one thing I love about this site, you know what's going on before the general public.

It looks obvious that the Ingels boxes would require foundation work but remember, when this concept was presented to Silverstein one of the biggest selling points was that this would NOT happen. And everything published about the lower levels, renderings etc., reflects an assumption that the Foster foundation would be retained. For example, that prism shaped concrete core element with the Walt Whitman quote. That, I inferred (please correct me if I'm wrong), was meant to transfer vertical load from the Ingels columns to the existing Foster columns.

If you demolish the Foster foundation, all of this goes out the window, literally. There is no reason for any of those features to be kept so you could have the Ingels design with a blank slate and none of those awkward transitions at ground level. That might actually be a good thing in terms of making T2 a better building.

On the other hand, what about horizontal load from Calatrava? During the period years ago when Calatrava was gearing up, we were told many times that it was necessary to have foundations for T2 and T3 in place before you could build Calatrava, because Calatrava depended on those foundations for lateral stability. Now Calatrava is finished, has that changed? How can you demolish T2 foundation now? There are enough complaints about Calatrava cost overruns as it is, now imagine what happens if you demolish T2 foundation for the Ingels design and you destabilize Calatrava as a result. I don't doubt this problem can be solved, with temporary bracing or whatever, I'm just pointing out that Calatrava was planned assuming T2 Foster foundation and if you start messing around with that then there is the potential for a lot of expensive problems and delays to arise.

Another thing, "structural design changes" could mean a great many things. If one of them is the foundation, ok, that is fairly predictable. But what else is there? My bet is on the cantilevering. I have a gut feeling, I think Ingels was just slightly too aggressive with it, it gives the tower an unstable appearance and it is very possible this could be a problem for the core tenant. It has already been complained about by many people here, and one could easily argue that the general public will have difficulty accepting an unstable looking building on this site, of all sites. So maybe Ingels was asked to redesign just backing off on the cantilevers, perhaps not eliminating them entirely but just making them narrower to moderate the leaning effect.

[drumz0rz]

While it doesn't surprise me that they want to redo the foundations, as others have pointed out, that's going to take serious engineering (and finances! This building may end up outspending 1 WTC! good time to be in construction...) to accomplish. The foundation of 2 WTC is directly adjacent to the PATH hall. So close in fact, that I doubt any stores would be able to open along the northern side during this time.

Going back to my aside on the money for a moment, it's such a waste! I hope none of that was tax payer funded... Not only have they completed the foundation to Foster's design, but the even have already built and finished the interiors. There's a marble lined hallway leading from the partially completed first floor down into the PATH terminal. The WTC Progress twitter account was even posting about how they finished the concrete stairs outside the building just a few weeks ago. Now they're going to tear all that work up and throw it all away all because News Corps wants changes...

[CityGuy87]

Originally Posted by drumz0rz

While it doesn't surprise me that they want to redo the foundations, as others have pointed out, that's going to take serious engineering (and finances! This building may end up outspending 1 WTC! good time to be in construction...) to accomplish. The foundation of 2 WTC is directly adjacent to the PATH hall. So close in fact, that I doubt any stores would be able to open along the northern side during this time.

Going back to my aside on the money for a moment, it's such a waste! I hope none of that was tax payer funded... Not only have they completed the foundation to Foster's design, but the even have already built and finished the interiors. There's a marble lined hallway leading from the partially completed first floor down into the PATH terminal. The WTC Progress twitter account was even posting about how they finished the concrete stairs outside the building just a few weeks ago. Now they're going to tear all that work up and throw it all away all because News Corps wants changes...

While ultimately I understood that News Corp/Fox needed to have a HQ with their particular design requirements considering that Foster's 2 WTC was geared mostly towards the financial firms who ironically, are moving away from the financial district and have been for some time now.

However, if the whole foundation situation was an issue from the get-go, then maybe News Corp/Fox should've looked elsewhere in the city (Hudson Yards perhaps?) for a site that didn't have a foundation built for another design. That's my main issue, they knew damn well there was already a foundation for Foster's tower but they decided that they wanted to build their completely different tower on that site regardless.

The least they could've done was maintain Foster and still bring Ingels in for a joint collaboration. That way Silverstein and Murdoch would both have their preferred architects working together on the project.

[BoM Trespasser]

Fox not moving into 2WTC? just saw that on CNBC BizNews ticker....

[JSsocal]

Looks like they're not doing it:

Fox, News Corp. to keep HQs in Midtown
http://nypost.com/2016/01/15/fox-news-corp-to-keep-hqs-in-midtown/

[Streamliner]

Curbed
January 15, 2016
Amy Plitt

2WTC Loses Its Anchor Tenant: News Corp to Stay In Midtown
Link to Article

Here's a statement from Larry Silverstein, whose Silverstein Properties is the developer behind 2WTC:

[Zapatan]

Well —...

I'm glad Larry is optimistic though

[Busy Bee]

WOW

So everyone has this same question: Will this mean the BIG 2WTC design is kaput?

I have a feeling a tenant will be found and the project will go forward with essentially a very similar design. A very large part of me is relieved NYC will no longer be subjected to the endless Fox News jibberish and drivel in the form of the LED tickers built into the towers architecture. While the form would have been compelling, the content could quite possibly induce seizures from all the eye rolling.