Posted Oct 14, 2021, 6:59 PM
|
![NYguy's Avatar](image.php?u=167&dateline=1333454802) |
New Yorker for life
|
|
Join Date: Jul 2001
Location: Borough of Jersey
Posts: 52,590
|
|
Finally able to read this….
https://www.bizjournals.com/newyork/...ts-center.html
Peebles Corp. and partners unveil bid to build skyscraper on site next to Javits Center
By Liz Young
Staff Reporter, New York Business Journal
Oct 13, 2021
Quote:
………..The developers on Wednesday unveiled their bid to build a 1,500-foot-tall skyscraper, which would be among the tallest buildings in Manhattan. What's more, they said, if chosen, theirs would be the first skyscraper in the city built by a majority-Black development team.
The team said it will be presenting its proposal to the state's economic development arm, Empire State Development, on Thursday.
|
Quote:
ESD in March issued a request for proposals, seeking plans to develop the site for commercial or mixed use. A spokesperson for ESD on Wednesday said the agency has started reviewing the proposals it has received, but ESD does not discuss active procurement processes.
This development team includes:
-The Peebles Corp., a privately-held national real estate investor and developer with a portfolio of active and completed projects totaling more than 10 million square feet and $8 billion.
-Architect David Adjaye of Adjaye Associates, who designed the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C.
-McKissack & McKissack, which says it is the oldest minority- and women-owned design construction company in the U.S.
-Exact Capital, a real estate development firm based in New York.
-Real estate investor Steven Witkoff, founder of the Witkoff Group.
|
Quote:
The skyscraper they're proposing, called "Affirmation Tower," would include a luxury lifestyle hotel and a microhotel; 1.1 million square feet of office space; an observation deck; a retail promenade at the ground level; and a community event space and the mid-Manhattan branch of the NAACP.
The project's pitch, in a way, flips the script on the usual New York state contracting requirements for minority- and women-owned business enterprises, or MWBEs, because MWBEs are leading this project, said Donahue Peebles III, chief of staff at The Peebles Corp.
|
Quote:
The site caught the team's attention because of its location, Peebles said, east of the main entrance to the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center.
While the Javits Center is one of the busiest convention centers in the country, its location between the West Side Highway and 11th Avenue — and next to the Lincoln Tunnel — has left it somewhat cut off from much of the rest of the city.
"The surrounding neighborhood doesn't necessarily offer the same amenities that you would expect surrounding the convention center," Peebles said. "It's one of the few convention centers that I can think of that doesn't have a hospitality component that's complementary to it."
That's where Peebles and his partners saw a chance to fill the needs of the area, while also building something that could help New York recover from the economic turmoil caused by the pandemic.
|
Quote:
” We're able to solve a meaningful location-based problem which is, 'If I have an event at the Javits Center, where am I staying?' As a consequence, when that question is answered, there will be so many more events that come to the Javits Center," he said.
"Meaningfully, and probably what ultimately drove us to the site, is that it's a bet on New York City," Peebles added. "When we thought of our building, we said, 'How can we bet on New York, and more importantly, what can we do to help lift New York out of this valley?'"
That's when they came up with creating 500 hotel keys, to generate tax revenue and create union jobs; building office space to attract new businesses to New York and keep other companies here; adding an observation deck as a tourist attraction; and turning the ground-level space into a retail promenade, open to the public.
|
__________________
NEW YORK is Back!
“Office buildings are our factories – whether for tech, creative or traditional industries we must continue to grow our modern factories to create new jobs,” said United States Senator Chuck Schumer.
|