NEW YORK | 15 Penn Plaza (Hotel Penn) | 1,050 FT / 315 M | 52 FLOORS - Page 42

599GTO · #**821** Posted **Jun 2, 2011, 8:54 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by giantSwan

As someone who is sympathetic to calls of preservation, I think the hotel penn should be demolished.

This site is about getting the maximum number of people near transit. I think this alone out weighs arguments for preserving the skyline or hotel penns architecture.

I hate replacing beautiful architecture with crap or less dense development. But this is going to bring more (needed) density to the train station...and the new architecture is going to be excellent.

I'd much rather have this tower than Hotel Penn, but the things that boggle my mind in this city is why the good looking buildings are knocked down when often times the knocked down building is surrounded by junk that should have been razed first? Wouldn't it make more sense to buy out all that low-rent low-rise junk in this part of the town, raze them and then build this instead?

Like the Drake Hotel...there are a few bland/crummy buildings on that park of Park Avenue that could have been knocked down instead. Why did it have to be that beautiful hotel? I know many of these domestic terrorist real estate developers couldn't give a crap about the city/are greedy/tacky and just want to maximize profits, but a little civic pride wouldn't hurt...

aquablue · #**822** Posted **Jun 2, 2011, 9:23 PM**

The tower is extremely cool. If the glass is quality like you show, it'll really help modernize the entire skyline and yank it into the 21st century fast.

The reason why they target these old hotels is probably because old and ugly office buildings from the 60's/70's can be retrofitted to modern standards while these old babies can't without breaking the bank. The $ reigns far and wide over civic pride. It is odd how they won't landmark more pre-war buildings like the drake and this one. That would force developers to find other sites. Who knows why. I'm not in love with this old hotel (I liked the drake more), but I wish the planning board had forced them to keep the lower facade somehow. I think the transport improvements proposed just hit the right note with the city and probably overwhelemed any opposition.

brian.odonnell20 · #**823** Posted **Jun 3, 2011, 12:49 AM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by 599GTO

I'd much rather have this tower than Hotel Penn, but the things that boggle my mind in this city is why the good looking buildings are knocked down when often times the knocked down building is surrounded by junk that should have been razed first? Wouldn't it make more sense to buy out all that low-rent low-rise junk in this part of the town, raze them and then build this instead?

Like the Drake Hotel...there are a few bland/crummy buildings on that park of Park Avenue that could have been knocked down instead. Why did it have to be that beautiful hotel? I know many of these domestic terrorist real estate developers couldn't give a crap about the city/are greedy/tacky and just want to maximize profits, but a little civic pride wouldn't hurt...

nimbyism and zoning issues?

mrnyc · #**824** Posted **Jun 3, 2011, 5:14 PM**

a minor tangent but i was curious about the something in the last line of the nytimes article above that described the penn plaza setback:

"...Drawings for the Vornado tower, which was approved last year but now appears to be on hold, respect the setback — Vornado did not try to recover the lost space. So it appears that the strange 15-foot gap along Seventh Avenue will, like Jauncey Lane, survive far beyond the railroad station it was intended to honor."

that made me wonder about any surviving remanent of pre-revolutionary jauncey lane (and stryker lane), which were once part of the apthorp farm on the uws. wiki sez:

The ghostly passage of the lanes can still be detected; that of Jauncey's Lane subsists in the mid-block break between apartment buildings fronting Broadway just north of the northwest corner of 91st Street and running diagonally west to West End Avenue, and formerly all the way to Riverside Drive,[1] and that of Stryker's Lane in the similar gap between 93rd and 94th Streets, once running to the house built by Gerrit Stryker overlooking Stryker's Bay, a river landing now represented by infilled parkland of Riverside Park at the foot of 96th Street and the river.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apthorp_Farm

^ interesting if out of the way for me, but something to look for if anyone does a photothread of the neighborhood. i love stuff like that.

plinko · #**825** Posted **Jun 3, 2011, 7:18 PM**

I think the building is moderately interesting and will likely end up similar to 2IFC in Hong Kong. Astonishingly tall but really understated architecturally. Seems to be a hallmark of Pelli's sons latest works. The Santiago tower doesn't bother me, the Jersey City tower is unfortunate, and the San Francisco tower is a travesty (SOM's proposal was SO much more).

Given STR's renderings, I think the part that bothers me is the similar facade treatment on all 4 sides, despite the fact that the tower is rectangular. I'd much rather see the N/S or E/W sides do something else given the shape. This wouldn't bother me at all if the tower were square, but alas it is not for a variety of reasons (mostly economic and site driven).

brian.odonnell20 · #**826** Posted **Jun 3, 2011, 7:40 PM**

the general massing and detail of this tower reminds me of a big glass banana peel.

CoolCzech · #**827** Posted **Jul 31, 2011, 4:18 PM**

I see we are still at the big glass banana peel stage of development. No news, I guess?

yankeesfan1000 · #**828** Posted **Jul 31, 2011, 5:05 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by CoolCzech

I see we are still at the big glass banana peel stage of development. No news, I guess?

Waiting for a tenant. If there's news it be posted.

STR · #**829** Posted **Sep 9, 2011, 4:23 AM**

Don098 · #**830** Posted **Sep 9, 2011, 5:19 AM**

Come on redesign...you can do it...

Onn · #**831** Posted **Sep 9, 2011, 6:14 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by Don098

Come on redesign...you can do it...

Redesign? Why? I love the tower as is!

SkyscrapersOfNewYork · #**832** Posted **Sep 9, 2011, 6:23 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by Don098

Come on redesign...you can do it...

A redesign wouldn't improve the design,its a great building and the only thing that could come with a redesign is cost efficient engineering. Need we remember the atrocity against 3 WTC....

NYguy · #**833** Posted **Sep 10, 2011, 1:29 PM**

Personally, I prefer the 1,198 ft version to the 1,216 ft version. It just works better at street level for me.
However, the taller version works better at the top.

Away from the tower though, it won't matter that much.

Guiltyspark · #**834** Posted **Oct 6, 2011, 9:04 PM**

I am not a fan of the whole "let the building fade into the sky" school of architecture that seems to be the norm in NYC lately. New York Times Tower and to a lesser extent, Bank of America both suffer from this, and it looks like from the renders that this will too. Other than that, it is an ok building, but it is still too fat. It either needs another 30 floors or to be made thinner. On the other hand 440 Park is way to thin... Has NYC lost all sense or proportion? lol.

CyberEric · #**835** Posted **Oct 6, 2011, 11:17 PM**

This building looks very much like a square version of the proposed Transbay Tower in San Francisco.

http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?t=136300&page=122

STR · #**836** Posted **Oct 7, 2011, 2:01 AM**

It's not a true Pei if it hasn't been beaten to death long before you saw it on your plot of land.

Guiltyspark · #**837** Posted **Oct 7, 2011, 4:17 AM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by STR

It's not a true Pei if it hasn't been beaten to death long before you saw it on your plot of land.

There is a reason for that. lol.

NYguy · #**838** Posted **Oct 13, 2011, 2:21 AM**

Often lost in the conversation of possible new construction, but shouldn't be forgotten about...

http://mycrains.crainsnewyork.com/blogs/red-wrap/2011/10/crowding-the-starting-gate/

Crowding the starting gate

October 10, 2011
by Erik Ipsen

Quote:

Less than a month after the tenth anniversary of Sept. 11 and a tide of stories about how much progress has been made in rebuilding not just ground zero but Manhattan’s once-moribund downtown, focus is shifting to the next frontier—the area beyond Penn Station. Brookfield Office Properties is planning to begin work on its site along Ninth Avenue between 31st and 33rd streets “in January,” according to the company’s CEO. As many as four towers are planned. A block west, Related Cos. is eying a similar start date for work on its sprawling 26-acre Hudson Yards property, where it plans to erect what amounts to a whole new mini-neighborhood.

Meanwhile, don’t forget that nearby on Seventh Avenue, giant Vornado is itching to put up the tallest building of the proposed lot on the site of the Hotel Pennsylvania.

All three developers are powerful, well-capitalized and smart enough to know that there’s not enough demand to even begin to fill all that space. Meanwhile, Larry Silverstein has two perfectly lovely building platforms nearing completion in a hot area formerly called ground zero. Surely the next rising economic tide looks likely to lift his boats long before any tenants begin circling the Penn Station vicinity.

plinko · #**839** Posted **Oct 13, 2011, 5:02 AM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by STR

It's not a true Pei if it hasn't been beaten to death long before you saw it on your plot of land.

errr...Pelli...not Pei...

NYguy · #**840** Posted **Nov 1, 2011, 3:06 PM**

http://therealdeal.com/newyork/articles/climbing-back-to-the-top

Climbing back to the top

November 01, 2011
By C. J. Hughes

Quote:

Vornado, headed by Steven Roth and Michael Fascitelli, saw its stock price sink to $29.31 in March 2009, but it, too, soared this past July, to $98.60, a 236 percent leap. In the middle of last month, it was at $76.72.

While the recent price dip could, of course, be making it harder to sell shares and raise money, it doesn't bode badly for Vornado's development plans, said Sheila McGrath, a managing director with Keefe, Bruyette & Woods in Manhattan. She cited the 2 million-square-foot high-rise, 15 Penn Plaza, that Vornado is planning for the Hotel Pennsylvania site across from Penn Station.

"As long as the returns pencil out" -- that is, as long as it can get an anchor tenant -- "they can make it work," she said.