NEW YORK | Empire Station District | 9 Towers (18-20 msf)| FT | FLOORS

[chris08876]

That's what happens when the state gets involved. Delays, reductions, botched time tables.

But what this will do is improve the general area and than overtime, the true private sector folks will come in and do a better job. Cheaper, quicker, grandiose and better quality.

Look to Hudson Yards to see what can be created when capital is put to good use.

Empire Station (Penn District) is a catalyst for growth all over. The reductions seem to, IMO, cater to a sort of reactionary measure of short term gain for those seeking reductions, but would suck to not plan for the future. To lower the potential from a long term out look. Why short yourself out, ya know?

As for long term outlook, potential to always change under different guidance via different administrations.

[NYguy]

Originally Posted by Zapatan

I'm just looking at the first page, if I remember correctly wasn't one of the sites potentially 3-4 MSF? Maybe not mega tall material but maybe a new tallest for NYC...

Originally Posted by Raysiri

Found it here: https://newyorkyimby.com/2021/01/twi...manhattan.html

That was never a real proposal. It had about as much merrit as you or I putting together a proposal.

Originally Posted by Hudson11

They already limited the heights of the buildings in Hochul's review, don't expect several 1200 footers here. They made it a point that they decreased the allowed height and density of the buildings versus Cuomo's vision.

Hochul decreased the overall density, slightly. In theory, that could reduce the height of the towers. But for buildings that don’t even have a developer, and are a decade away from being built ( long after Hochul is gone ), there’s no way of saying she cut the height.

[Zapatan]

Hochul decreased the overall density, slightly. In theory, that could reduce the height of the towers. But for buildings that don’t even have a developer, and are a decade away from being built ( long after Hochul is gone ), there’s no way of saying she cut the height.

While it does say "Lowering building heights" at the top of the news excerpt that Hudson posted, I agree that it's probably too early to know anything in that regard. Question is, why did they lower heights of buildings that don't exist yet or even have a height figure?

If I understand correctly, it's not like there's a limit to the building heights that has been lowered, which I guess is good.

They already limited the heights of the buildings in Hochul's review, don't expect several 1200 footers here. They made it a point that they decreased the allowed height and density of the buildings versus Cuomo's vision.

I would be happy with 2-3 1,200 footers especially if one went way higher.

There probably aren't too many lots left in Manhattan to build something so grandiose in terms of height, I really hope this opportunity isn't totally blown.

[NYguy]

Originally Posted by Zapatan

While it does say "Lowering building heights" at the top of the news excerpt that Hudson posted

Idiots get to write articles too. Four WTC is a much larger building than One Vanderbilt, yet Vanderbilt is a much taller building. We here at least know enough to know that bulk doesn’t always equate height. The bottom line is, we are years away from knowing any exact heights, even if there were a hard height limit given (there gasn’t been). So it makes no sense trying to concern yourself with it now. The buildings will be big, and that will have to be enough.

[chris08876]

I think we have to look at it from the overall square footage potential, which will be a lot. The height will naturally come but what will be present is the bulk. Essentially any business district from the sense of functionality looks at how much space is available and what's in that space to cater to the tenants of today or tomorrow. But given the land constraints and to meet those goals, height will be a natural process. Either way, it WILL be noticeable. With this being a decade long project, over time... a lot can happen or change.

I sort of equate this district as a flowering pot. Put the water, the nutrients... and overtime, it will grow. But sometimes the plants come out deranged and messed up and sometimes they are stellar. All remains a possibility.

[NYguy]

^ The funny thing is that it took so long for it to happen in the first place. The Penn Station area should be as dense as the area around Grand Central. Even with rhis plan, it won’t be quite that.

[Zapatan]

Originally Posted by NYguy

Idiots get to write articles too. Four WTC is a much larger building than One Vanderbilt, yet Vanderbilt is a much taller building. We here at least know enough to know that bulk doesn’t always equate height. The bottom line is, we are years away from knowing any exact heights, even if there were a hard height limit given (there gasn’t been). So it makes no sense trying to concern yourself with it now. The buildings will be big, and that will have to be enough.

I know, although to be fair 1V has a lot of vanity height (these towers may too hopefully )

Reducing the density by 1.4 MSF doesn't really seem like that much to be honest, hopefully a 3MFS 450+ meter tower can still rise.

[NYguy]

This will have no bearing on the project, but interesting move….(CB5 meeting)



https://www.cb5.org/cb5m/calendar/20...-public-spaces

JOINT LANDMARKS AND PARKS & PUBLIC SPACES

Tuesday, January 4th, 2022, at 6:00pm
Video Conference


Review of eligibility criteria for the National Register of Historic Places for Penn Plaza (MSG, 2 Penn, PSNY), aka block 781.

[NYguy]

An actual discussion where some of the posters made sense after the initial nonsense…


https://mobile.twitter.com/liamblank...19591018528769

[NYguy]

Seems they’ve only been on site 1 for a couple of years…


https://nypost.com/2022/01/02/three-...th-university/

Three Times Square inks ginormous deal with university

By Steve Cuozzo
January 2, 2022




Touro is relocating from within Manhattan.

Touro College and University System has signed a long-term lease for 243,305 square feet at the Rudin Family’s Three Times Square. Touro will move seven of its schools into floors three through nine and parts of the ground and second floors.

The half-century old educational institution will have its own dedicated entrance and lobby at the southwest corner of Seventh Avenue and West 43d Street, as well as lounges, cafés and other amenities for some 2,000 students. Touro’s floors will house classrooms, laboratories, libraries and event spaces.

All the floors will be connected by attractive new internal staircases.

“Fire stairs won’t do it,” said Touro Senior VP of Operations Jeffrey Rosengarten of the need to create a community feel.

He said that Touro’s graduate schools of business, education, Jewish studies, social work and technology, as well as its College of Pharmacy and New York School of Career & Applied Studies, will move from locations on West 31st, 40th and 125th streets.

Touro leases or owns about one million square feet in Manhattan and the outer boroughs. Its total enrollment of 19,000 is spread over 35 locations in the US, Berlin, Jerusalem and Moscow.

… Rosengarten spent much of the past seven years searching for a location to create a main Manhattan campus. “It was difficult because we had very specific needs,” he said, including a large block of contiguous space on lower floors, tall ceiling heights and 30,000-square-foot floor plates “so we could have a sufficient number of classrooms and laboratories on a single floor.”

Plus, we needed “a building that frankly wanted to accommodate a school where we could create a building-within-a-building.

[JMKeynes]

I saw that. I hope that terrible building comes down, along with the parking lot and garage on either side of it.

[NYguy]

Originally Posted by JMKeynes

I saw that. I hope that terrible building comes down, along with the parking lot and garage on either side of it.

It’s part of the stretch that makes up site 1. Just one of the many lovely sites people complain will be lost because of this project.

[JMKeynes]

That site is horrible. I can’t wait for it to come down.

[mrnyc]

i'll say.

if there is a better more uncontroversial place to start empire than this one i would like to see it.

just look at this 8av side.

wat a buncha garbage -- good riddance!

https://www.google.com/maps/@40.7500...4!8i8192?hl=en

[NYguy]

^ But think of the historic nature of those parking lots. Where will people park? How will they even get into the city?




https://chelseacommunitynews.com/202...plans-for-you/

While You’ve Been Busy, Big Real Estate Has Made Some Plans for You


December 31, 2021
BY LYNN ELLSWORTH (Chair, Alliance for Human-scale City and Co-coordinator, Empire Station Coalition)

While we’ve all been worrying about Omicron, daydreaming about what we are going to do with our lives post-COVID, or coping with the reality that our kids are getting educated via Zoom, Big Real Estate has been at it once more. They’re using our preoccupations to rush dastardly deeds right past us, deeds that require our civic attention. The list of wrongs is long, so let’s cover just three of the biggest that will inflict the worst damage.

First up is the scam being foisted upon us by Vornado, our city’s largest real estate investment trust and a major landlord in our city, particularly in the Penn Station neighborhood. Vornado has managed—through massive campaign donations—to make our politicians supine to its bottom line [1]. Their plan? To extend the Hudson Yards complex to the east around Penn Station and Madison Square Garden with 10 glass skyscrapers. Vornado wants them as expensive, speculative “Class A” office space, not space for small business.

Their plan demolishes stunningly beautiful historic buildings all around the neighborhood, evicts hundreds of small businesses now employing 10,000 workers, and destroys the homes of about four hundred people who live in beautiful brick Gotham buildings, some of them landmark worthy [2]. The noise that Vornado and the local BID it dominates is drowning out the far superior, alternative plan put forth by the Empire Station Coalition (a massive coalition of community, civic, and transit advocates).

Where are the politicians in this, you may ask? Alas, they are rushing to accommodate Vornado and take a “see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil” stance. The politicians have bought into the fiction that all this demolition and reconstruction is “necessary” to generate real estate tax revenue to pay for lipstick-on-the-pig improvements to the rat’s nest known as Penn Station. (And no, the renovated Post Office for Amtrak’s waiting rooms did not solve the larger problem of Penn Station).

To add insult to injury, Vornado and the Dolan family (owner of Madison Square Garden) have talked our state preservation office into declaring their buildings perching above Penn Station as worthy of listing in the National Registry of Historic Places. Those buildings are literally architectural crime scenes: They memorialize the demolition of the old great Penn Station and blight the neighborhood. This cunning ploy makes them potential beneficiaries of federal tax credits, obtained even though Vornado demolishes the gorgeous (and huge) Hotel Pennsylvania in the doing. How’s that for a head-spinning scam?

[MAC123]

How do I get an account on that site so I can tell them their article is stupid?

"But think of the historic nature of those parking lots. Where will people park? How will they even get into the city?" lol but seriously, just get rid of them. Parking minimums should be eliminated in Manhattan. And certain other areas of the city like Downtown Brooklyn. (Though maybe not necessary as cars won't be able to drive through there anyway soon)

[mrnyc]

^ lol!

and right from the get go trumpian fake news lies of the first sentence -- nyc kids have been back in person since last spring. i am guessing she may be unaware of that and her kids go to private schools since she has time for this?

[TonyNYC]

Originally Posted by NYguy

It’s part of the stretch that makes up site 1. Just one of the many lovely sites people complain will be lost because of this project.

Plenty of junk along stretches of the planned Empire Station footprint, but St John's The Baptist Church is definitely NOT one of them.

The 150 Year old French Gothic Church should be Landmarked!!


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Jo...rch_(Manhattan)

[JMKeynes]

Originally Posted by TonyNYC

Plenty of junk along stretches of the planned Empire Station footprint, but St John's The Baptist Church is definitely NOT one of them.

The 150 Year old French Gothic Church should be Landmarked!!


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Jo...rch_(Manhattan)

I agree.

[NYguy]

Originally Posted by TonyNYC

Plenty of junk along stretches of the planned Empire Station footprint, but St John's The Baptist Church is definitely NOT one of them.

The 150 Year old French Gothic Church should be Landmarked!!

Well, if it comes down to that church or Penn Station, the church goes. Maybe they can move it someplace else. It’s not the original anway, and they’ve already been selling off pieces of the property. Which brings me to another point. That church, which is older than Penn Station, was part of the neighborhood that stood where Penn now stands. And I ask myself, if that neighborhood (blocks really) stood in the way of Penn Station being built today, would I think it reasonable to demolish those blocks to get it built? I’d be insane not to, given what Penn represents. But here’s another scenario. Let’s say they finally reach an agreement to rebuild the original Penn, and move MSG to a block this church sits on. Would I find that acceptable? Absolutely.