NEW YORK | One Grand (76 Varick St) | FT | 28 FLOORS

[NYguy]

On hold. Again.


http://observer.com/2013/03/hudson-squar...-landmarking-compromise-be-in-the-works/

Hudson Square On Hold: City Council Postpones Vote,
Could a Landmarking Compromise Be In the Works?





By Kim Velsey 3/07/13

Hudson Square has, by and large, been a largely uncontentious rezoning (despite being the largest private rezoning in the city’s history). In comparison to the bitter battles already being fought over Midtown East, the process looks positively kumbaya. But given the City Council’s decision to delay their vote on the rezoning this morning, we suspect that approval will be contingent on at least a few concessions.

Could one of those compromises involve landmarking at least part of South Village? The Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation has argued that the adjacent neighborhood’s low-rise historic architecture will be the biggest casualty of a more vibrant Hudson Square (or as some of the neighborhood’s hip tech and media companies have taken to calling it—Soho West).

While many have rejected the notion that Speaker Christine Quinn would make landmarking a condition of the rezoning—that she even could make it a condition of the rezoning (Ms. Quinn’s office declined to comment)—the city’s own environmental impact study found that the proposed historic district would suffer a “significant adverse impact from the rezoning.”

Basically, once Hudson Square morphs from what is largely an office district into a mixed-use neighborhood with all the bells and whistles (dining/drinking/shopping/living), developers will flock not only to Hudson Square, but also to nearby neighborhoods.

Additionally, many of the other requests to come out of the public review process have already been incorporated into the plan. Borough president Scott Stringer extracted a promise for a school to serve the new residents that the rezoning is expected to bring (between 2,000 and 3,200 new housing units are expected). Mr. Stringer also knocked the height of the buildings down from 320 feet to 290 feet and required special permits for any hotels with more than 100 rooms (limiting the danger of another Trump Soho sprouting up).

We should know be able to see what shape the negotiations take next Wednesday, the day the council’s vote has been rescheduled for.

[NYguy]

http://observer.com/2013/03/holy-trinity...p-of-approval-to-hudson-square-rezoning/

Holy Trinity! City Council Committees Give Hudson Square Rezoning Stamp of Approval


By Kim Velsey
March 13, 2013

This morning, the City Council’s zoning and franchise committee approved the Hudson Square Rezoning and the full land use committee followed suit soon after, paving the way for full City Council approval (probably later this month). The decision, however, was not granted without modifications—more affordable housing, open space funding and an agreement from the Landmarks Preservation Commission to vote on the northern section of the South Village Historic District by the end of the year.

mong the other modifications to the plan, the zoning text will be modified to allow developers to maximize affordable housing to the fullest extent allowed (the rezoning is expected to bring between 2,000 and 3,000 new apartments, a modest percentage of which will be affordable). Open space funding—one of the community’s requests—has also been incorporated into the modified plan, with the Parks Department agreeing to prioritize $5.6 million in mitigation funds to fix the roof at Pier 40 and to expand the services at the Dapalito Center, allowing for use of both the indoor and outdoor pools at the same time.

Trinity has also agreed to build new recreation spaces for community use at the 444-seat elementary school (itself a concession to accommodate the neighborhood’s new residents). Before the rezoning proposal came to the City Council, the City Planning Commission and borough president Scott Stringer negotiated a few other changes, knocking the height of the buildings down from 320 feet to 290 feet and requiring special permits for any hotels with more than 100 rooms.

To mollify other property owners, like Edison, in the neighborhood, Trinity also agreed to eliminate Subdistrict B from the plan, which would have restricted building heights near the Holland Tunnel.

[NYguy]

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/25/nyregi...-to-spend-its-wealth.html?pagewanted=all

Trinity Church Split on How to Manage $2 Billion Legacy of a Queen




Most of Trinity Church’s Manhattan real estate holdings are in the Hudson Square area, including a vacant lot at Duarte Square.


By SHARON OTTERMAN
April 24, 2013

There has never been any doubt that Trinity Church is wealthy. But the extent of its wealth has long been a mystery; guessed at by many, known by few. Now, however, after a lawsuit filed by a disenchanted parishioner, the church has offered an estimate of the value of its assets: more than $2 billion.

The Episcopal parish, known as Trinity Wall Street, traces its holdings to a gift of 215 acres of prime Manhattan farmland donated in 1705 by Queen Anne of England. Since then, the church has parlayed that gift into a rich portfolio of office buildings, stock investments and, soon, mixed-use residential development....Over the years, the church has sold or given away much of the original 215 acres from Queen Anne, but it has 14 acres, including 5.5 million square feet of commercial real estate.

It reported $158 million in real estate revenue for 2011, the majority of which went toward maintaining and supporting its real estate operations, the financial statement indicates. Of the $38 million left for the church’s operating budget, some $4 million was spent on communications, $3 million on philanthropic grant spending and $2.5 million on the church’s music program, church officials said. Nearly $6 million went to maintain Trinity’s historic properties, including the main church building, which was built in 1846; St. Paul’s Chapel; and several cemeteries, where luminaries including Alexander Hamilton and Edward I. Koch are buried. The remainder went into the church’s equity investment portfolio.

The vast majority of the parish’s property is in Hudson Square, a commercial neighborhood next to the Manhattan entrance to the Holland Tunnel. These days, the area’s hulking prewar industrial buildings, designed for use by printing companies, are increasingly occupied by creative and technology companies, with restaurants and galleries on the street level.

“The Trinity Church properties are now among the most valuable in all of New York City, because they are sitting on the edge of the hottest neighborhoods in the city — SoHo, TriBeCa and Greenwich Village,” said Mitchell L. Moss, a professor of urban policy and planning at New York University. “Trinity has been either very wise or very prudent, but they have let the market mature around them, and now they are ready to take advantage of it.”

The church, which calls itself “one of the largest landowners in Manhattan,” has also been building an equity investment portfolio that was worth about $160 million in 2011. And the value of Trinity’s real estate holdings is expected to grow because rezoning of much of the church’s land will allow up to 3,200 new residential units, with the first large project planned for Duarte Square on Canal Street.

“The legacy of Queen Anne is that Trinity Church is going to prosper in the 21st century,” Mr. Moss said. “Who says that the empire doesn’t live on?”

[NYguy]

http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article/201...039945/trinity-to-erect-apartment-towers

Trinity to erect apartment towers
The Episcopal church's lucrative property arm makes a big new bet on residential real estate





BY DANIEL GEIGER
NOVEMBER 3, 2014

For just over three centuries, Trinity Church has cautiously managed the 215 acres of downtown Manhattan it received from Britain's Queen Anne, turning it from productive farmland to industrial and office space.

In the next few weeks, the Episcopal church—whose property arm, Trinity Real Estate, oversees the 5.5 million square feet of office buildings it owns on the western fringe of SoHo in an area called Hudson Square—will try something new. It will venture into the high-stakes game of residential development.

.....Trinity's first step will come before the year-end, when it selects a partner to help rebuild its 25-story headquarters on Trinity Place. The building is across the street from Trinity's landmark church and linked to its famous cemetery—the final resting place of Alexander Hamilton, among others—via a pedestrian bridge. Work converting the office building to a sleek, 44-story Pelli Clarke Pelli-designed tower, topped by luxury residences, will begin next year.

Meanwhile, in January, Trinity will kick off the search for a partner to help build a 430-foot-tall, 300,000-square-foot residential building a mile north, on a plot framed by Sixth Avenue and Canal, Grand and Varick streets. The property will include a 444-seat public school at its base.

At least three more big residential towers, together totaling close to 1 million square feet, will follow in Hudson Square. Trinity laid the legal groundwork for their rise last year when the City Council approved a massive rezoning that will allow the church—Hudson Square's largest landlord, with more than a dozen office buildings—to build residences for the first time.

.....Mr. Pizer, 49, has an even-keeled demeanor that has made him a fitting chief of Trinity's real estate business. After the rezoning last year, several developers broke ground on residential projects. Mr. Pizer said Trinity would be cautious not to undertake too much at once.

"I'm a big believer that we should never bite off more than we can chew," he said.

[b][color=blue]Mr. Pizer noted the company would likely wait years before it undertakes 4 Hudson Square, a development site that encompasses the full block between Hudson and Varick streets from Spring to Vandam streets.
The location can accommodate about 1 million square feet of new development—likely two towers, one residential and the other office space.

"We'll wait for the next real estate cycle," Mr. Pizer said.

[chris08876]

Trinity looks to sell leasehold for Hudson Square development site

Trinity Real Estate is looking to ground lease one of its Hudson Square development sites in a deal that could be worth $180 million or more.

The company, the real estate arm of Trinity Church, put the development site at the corner of Canal Street and Sixth Avenue, known as 2 Hudson Square, on the market, Crain’s reported.

CBRE’s Darcy Stacom has the listing.

Trinity is offering control of the property through a long-term lease – most likely for a term of 99 years – where an investor could develop roughly 300,000 square feet of residential space.

It wasn’t clear what Trinity is valuing the site at in terms of upfront payments or rent. But one source told Crain’s the leasehold position could be valued at $180 million or more.

The city unlocked the development potential through a 2013 rezoning initiated by Trinity.

Trinity recently struck a deal to ground lease the site at 4 Hudson Square for $650 million to the Walt Disney Co., which plans on building a new headquarters after selling the Upper West Side offices of ABC to Silverstein Properties for $1 billion.

In 2015, Trinity sold a 44 percent stake in a 75-year ground lease controlling its 5 million-square-foot Hudson Square portfolio to the Norwegian sovereign wealth fund Norges for $3.55 billion.

The development sites at 2 and 4 Hudson Square were not part of that portfolio.

======================
TRD
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[chris08876]

This is the other development site, 4 Hudson.

Lot Size: 86,025 SF
An entire block located in the middle of Hudson Square is an assemblage of five tax parcels and provides a unique development opportunity. The site is currently improved with several mixed-use buildings and contains a total of 86,025 square feet zoned for the Special Hudson Square Zoning District. The zoning permits residential development with ground level retail at a maximum residential floor area ratio (FAR) of 9.0 times the lot size. This base FAR will be bonusable to 12.0 times the lot size with inclusionary housing. 304 Hudson Street, an existing office building must remain commercial space, but can be increased in size to reach 9.0 FAR from an existing 6 FAR.

Credit: trinitynyc

[chris08876]

Renderings Revealed For SHoP Architects-Designed Skyscraper At 2 Hudson Square, In Lower Manhattan

Today, YIMBY has the scoop and exclusive reveal of official renderings for the 450,380-square-foot mixed-use building coming to 2 Hudson Square. Located at the southeast corner of the neighborhood, the lot will soon house a public school with an office tower above for boutique finance and tech tenants. The 465-foot-tall, 26-story development is a joint venture between Taconic Investment Partners and Nuveen, after the pair acquired the land in a 99-year lease from Trinity Real Estate, the real estate branch of Trinity Church. SHoP Architects is responsible for the design.

The 32,699-square-foot plot is located at 76 Varick Street with Grand Street to the north, Varick Street to the west, Canal Street to the south, and Sixth Avenue to the east. Directly adjacent to the site is Duarte Square and the Canal Street subway station, serviced by the 1 train, is steps away.

Renderings reveal a textural façade of steel and floor-to-ceiling glass. Mullions of glazed terracotta separate the narrow opaque glass panels all the way up the tower, which features a couple landscaped terraces on setbacks.

In the podium of 2 Hudson Square, the school with integrated community facilities will comprise 77,100 square feet over five floors. The school will have 444 seats for elementary students from pre-kindergarten through fifth grade. Entry will be on the building’s Duarte Square Park frontage and a 3,000-square-foot outdoor playground will be positioned on the fifth floor. There will be 8,890 square feet of retail space on the ground floor with frontage along both Canal and Varick Streets and facing Duarte Square Park.

2 Hudson Square will have 331,910 square feet of Class A office space, with the majority located in the tower. The podium will have four stories of office space on floors seven through ten, each measuring about 19,000 square feet. Floors nine and ten will have outdoor terraces. The 11th through 25th levels will have approximately 16,000 square feet apiece and 16-foot-high ceilings. There is a private outdoor terrace for the penthouse tenant as well as a shared 2,000-square-foot terrace for all commercial tenants on the rooftop, with unobstructed views to the south and east. Mechanicals will occupy the 26th floor as well as the sixth floor, along with some office space.

=================
NYY

[chris08876]

Rename title to: NEW YORK | 2 Hudson Square | 465 FT | 26 FLOORS

[NYguy]

Nice for the area, joining Disney, and right at the #1 subway stop.

[NYguy]

Nice for the area, joining Disney, and right at the #1 subway stop.

[Submariner]

Meh...the site deserves, but this is okay I suppose.

[Phil McAvity]

^The site deserves.....?

[chris08876]

It looks okay IMO.

[Submariner]

Originally Posted by Phil McAvity

^The site deserves.....?

better*...not sure how I forgot to add that in!

[Phil McAvity]

probably because your brain works way faster than you type. I omit words sometimes too

[chris08876]

SHoP Architects’ 26-Story Two Hudson Square Awaits Construction In Hudson Square, Manhattan

Construction preparations have yet to begin at Two Hudson Square, site of a 465-foot-tall mixed-use project in Hudson Square. Alternately addressed as 76 Varick Street, the vacant 32,699-square-foot property will give rise to a 26-story, 450,380-square-foot building designed by SHoP Architects and developed by a joint venture between Taconic Investment Partners and Nuveen, which acquired the land in a 99-year lease from Trinity Real Estate. The trapezoidal plot is bound by Canal Street to the south, Varick Street to the west, Grand Street to the north, and Sullivan Street and Duarte Square to the east.

Recent photos show green construction boards and metal gates surrounding the property, which is occupied by small wooden and metal structures that remain from past food and retail venues that made use of this rare open-air space.

The main rendering depicts a conventionally shaped massing with the podium maintaining a fairly rectangular volume despite the unusual shape of the plot. Landscaped setbacks are shown on the fifth, ninth, and 11th floors with a children’s playground located on the fifth-floor outdoor space. Most of the main tower itself appears uniform with structurally repetitive floor plates behind a curtain wall of floor-to-ceiling glass with dark terracotta mullions. A final upper setback creates an angled wall just below the flat roof parapet and what looks like a small mechanical extension on the northern end of the pinnacle.

Housed inside will be a 444-seat public school for pre-kindergarten through fifth grade students with integrated community facilities spanning 77,100 square feet over five floors. Ground-floor entryways to the school will be positioned east toward Duarte Square. Class A office space is planned to occupy floors seven through 25, with the podium levels measuring 19,000 square feet per floor and the upper stories spanning 16,000 square feet apiece with 16-foot-high ceilings. There will be room for a dedicated private outdoor space for the penthouse tenant, along with a 2,000-square-foot communal rooftop terrace. The mechanical equipment would rest on the 26th story and parts of the sixth floor. The property will also feature 8,890 square feet of ground-floor retail space facing Canal and Varick Streets and Duarte Square Park.

Two Hudson Square is aiming for LEED Platinum certification for the core and shell construction, as well as WELL Platinum certification for the design and performance of the commercial office space. Taconic Investment Partners and Nuveen Real Estate secured $408 million in construction financing in December 2019.

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NYY

[JMKeynes]

Beautiful!

[chris08876]

Permits Filed For 76 Varick Street In Hudson Square, Manhattan

Permits have been filed for a 27-story mixed-use building at 76 Varick Street in Hudson Square, Manhattan. Also known as Two Hudson Square, the lot is bound by Canal Street to the south, Varick Street to the west, Grand Street to the north, and Sullivan Street and Duarte Square to the east. The 450,380-square-foot building is a joint venture between Taconic Investment Partners and Nuveen.

The proposed 420-foot-tall development will yield 326,974 square feet for commercial space. The building will house a 444-seat public school for pre-kindergarten through fifth grade students with integrated community facilities spanning 77,100 square feet over five floors. Class A office space will span floors seven through 25, and there will be 8,890 square feet of ground-floor retail. The concrete-based structure will also have a cellar and two enclosed parking spaces.

SHoP Architects is listed as the architect of record.

Demolition permits will likely not be needed as the lot is vacant. An estimated completion date has not been announced.

====================
NYY

[Busy Bee]

SHaRP

[NYguy]

https://nypost.com/2024/03/13/business/n...-tower-in-trendy-manhattan-neighborhood/

NYC developer plans to build 28-story office tower in trendy Manhattan neighborhood







By Steve Cuozzo
March 13, 2024

The developer behind Essex Crossing plans to build a nearly half-million square-foot office tower on Trinity Church land at Hudson Square — a sign of confidence in Manhattan’s troubled commercial market.

Taconic Partners and its investment partner Nuveen Real Estate unveiled images of One Grand, a tower to rise at the corner of Grand and Varick streets where Soho, Hudson Square and Tribeca converge.

The project designed by SHoP Architects is shown here for the first time.

It will rise 28 stories with 430,763 square feet of office space.

The first office floor will be 100 feet above ground with a public school and retail below it.

Taconic won’t start construction until it finds an anchor tenant — standard for nearly all new developments. The leasing task falls to a JLL team headed by New York president Peter Riguardi.

Several “supertall” office projects are theoretically planned in Midtown, but their designs are vague and none is anywhere near to coming out of the ground during the market downturn.

One Grand’s more modest size and fully-realized architecture give it a head start over the field.

The land is owned by Trinity Church, which remains one of Lower Manhattan’s major landowners. It chose Taconic and Nuveen to develop the site in 2019.

Taconic says the tower will boast advanced wellness and sustainability features, a 13,000-square-foot amenities center, 20,000 square feet of outdoor space and 14-foot ceiling heights.