NEW YORK | Tower Fifth | 1,556 FT | 96 FLOORS

[DZH22]

Terrible design for something that will be topping off the skyline.

[photoLith]

Please for the love of god, don't build it with that horrible horrible design. Yikes, no thanks. Would ruin the skyline forever.

[chris08876]

I think this will get major scrutiny once it goes through the ULURP. Also, once Gale Brewer gets her claws on this application. Still early though so a lot can happen.

But at that height, any sort of sub-par design will be hard to hide.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by chris08876

I think this will get major scrutiny once it goes through the ULURP.

ULURP here isn't really concerned with height, directly, but rather air rights transfers, which are more routine. And it's in a business district, so no NIMBYs.

Originally Posted by chris08876

But at that height, any sort of sub-par design will be hard to hide.

The architect and developer are first-rate, and so I have confidence. The renderings look good to me. SSP generally hates modernist boxes; people like conservative retro 80's style boxes with "hats" (see similar hate for 432 Park, CPT, etc.). The quality will all be in the glass.

And, yeah, while it will stand out, this probably won't be Midtown's tallest for more than a minute.

[sbarn]

Not a fan of this design. What are the chances of a redesign?

[RobEss]

What an awful, graceless silhouette.

[pianowizard]

Wow, beating the Central Park Tower by 1 foot? This may force Extell to bring back the spire! In this case I hope it won't reach 1775 ft as originally proposed, but at least 1777 ft so that 1WTC will no longer be the tallest. In general I despise disproportionately tall spires but having a 230 ft spire on the 1550 ft CPT is much more reasonable than having a 408 ft spire on the 1368 ft 1WTC.

As far as the latest design of Tower Fifth, I do think it looks a bit too similar to 432 Park Avenue. If the two buildings were much farther apart that wouldn't be an issue, but they are so close. I also agree with others that the protruding platform looks strange, if not awful. We might get used to it after a while though, just like we have gotten used to the one that 30 Hudson Yards has.

Originally Posted by chris08876

What I'm leading to is we'll probally see something within 1600-1700, than 1700-1800, before see see a solid 600m tower. I hope I'm wrong, and a developer with guts and an ego goes for the coveted 600m group.

The 2000 ft (610 m) Chicago Spire would look great in NYC! Keep the exact same design to save some money, but change the name to New York Spire!

[DeSelby]

Now that the initial shock has worn off and I’ve had some time to process the design, I must say I’m a bit disappointed. First of all, yet another flat roof is a letdown. Flat roofs belong in LA. NYC is a city of crowns and spires. Second, the Jenga block jutting out of the top looks strange. 30 Hudson Yards gracefully incorporates the protruding observation deck into the design, while it looks like a half-hearted afterthought on this tower.

The jenga/stacked box look in general has gotten pretty stale IMO. If this tower gets built as is then NYC will have three “stacked box” towers: Tower Fifth, 2 WTC and 56 Leonard. Plus there’s the Spiral which looks like stacked boxes from a distance. I hope architects abandon this trend soon, it’s played out now.

I had high hopes that this tower would have a really stunning design, since it’s a career capstone for Macklowe and a very exclusive office tower. Instead we’re getting another boxy supertall.

I’m thrilled about the height though! Perhaps the design will grow on me. We’re so spoiled in NYC that we’re complaining about 1500 ft towers!

Also, this Dan Shannon is merely the architect of record and Gensler is the actual design architect right?

[DCReid]

Originally Posted by Crawford

Yup. Extell won't like being topped. I think they'll have a "response" in due time.

Barnett wants to be the skyline king of Midtown.

Awful design! Anyone can design that junk! Concerning topping rights, sounds eerily like the early 30's when the Chrysler and ESB were going up.
This is from Wikipedia:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chrysler_Building

"Chrysler realized that his tower's height would exceed the Empire State Building's as well, having ordered Van Alen to change the Chrysler's original roof from a stubby Romanesque dome to the narrow steel spire. However, the Empire State's developer John J. Raskob reviewed the plans and realized that he could add five more floors and a spire of his own to his 80-story building, and subsequently acquired the nearby plots needed to support that building's height extension. Two days later, the Empire State Building's co-developer, former Governor Al Smith, announced the updated plans for that skyscraper, with an observation deck on the 86th-floor roof at a height of 1,050 feet (320 m), higher than the Chrysler's 71st-floor observation deck."

[NYguy]

Originally Posted by DZH22

Terrible design for something that will be topping off the skyline.

Originally Posted by sbarn

Not a fan of this design. What are the chances of a redesign?

There's a good chance the design is refined as this moves forward, but I'm not outraged by it like some others appear to be. A flat top? It will be no more outrageous than Central Park Tower (it's twin in height), 432 Park, or even the Chase Tower, which will be a more massive building. None of these towers will bring us the great spire the city deserves, but once you move past that, It's another tower that aims to take advantage of the ever growing and record breaking number of tourists that flood the city streets each year.

It will be a very public building, with features that make it more inviting to the public than some of the other towers going up anywhere. It won't be a "billionaire's tower" like so many of the critics of the new towers like to claim.

I can see the biggest issue for NIMBYs as being the location, above St Patrick's. But even if you cut the height by a third, you'd still have a 1,000 ft tower rising above, not really much of a difference from the street.

The difference would be on the skyline. And after the initial massing we saw, I was prepared for the worst, but pleasantly surprised by this. Is it a "great" design? I don't think it's great, it's just a more straight up version of 30 Hudson. Is it going to ruin the skyline? Hell no. If CPT and 432 Park haven't done it, if Chase's massive tower won't do it, I see no reason why this will. It's not necessarily what I want, but neither are the others.

These towers are like toys for me, and Christmas keeps on coming. Even just a year ago, we had no reason to expect this, but here we are headed for ULURP where things will get interesting.

[chris08876]

Originally Posted by pianowizard

The 2000 ft (610 m) Chicago Spire would look great in NYC! Keep the exact same design to save some money, but change the name to New York Spire!

Yeah... it would of been a great Hudson Yards signature tower. Like in an alternative universe, I would of moved the Vessel to Phase II, closest to the Hudson River, and place the Spire where the Vessel currently sits. The Vessel aka the Staircase being the ornament for the complex.

Originally Posted by pianowizard

Wow, beating the Central Park Tower by 1 foot? This may force Extell to bring back the spire! In this case I hope it won't reach 1775 ft as originally proposed, but at least 1777 ft so that 1WTC will no longer be the tallest. In general I despise disproportionately tall spires but having a 230 ft spire on the 1550 ft CPT is much more reasonable than having a 408 ft spire on the 1368 ft 1WTC.

With CPT, it really adds to the design. The renderings with the spire add so much to it. Not even for height, but the spire would do wonders for the aesthetics, which IMO, override height. A tower is nothing without aesthetics.

[NYC2ATX]

I don't hate it...the facade looks interesting. Honestly though, I just don't get why these designs have to be so rigidly beholden to a basic rectangular profile. It looks like a larger version of the original design for the Hudson's Tower in Detroit. But hey, that design was changed in favor of something more dynamic, maybe we can hope for the same here.

Best evolution with this development is the dropping of that "St. Steven's" name. Dunno where that was supposed to be derived from.

[cozy]

Design is meh, 1500 and one is a total cop out. Not impressed. But not disappointed.

[BonoboZill4]

Originally Posted by cozy

Design is meh, 1500 and one is a total cop out. Not impressed. But not disappointed.

Yeah, it's pretty lazy, and kind of just steals the design concept from an earlier iteration of that Hudson Block in Detroit (https://www.freep.com/story/money/bu...ht/1533123002/).

[jsbrook]

Ugly as shit. Hard to believe that this is in the same general category of objects we call “buildings” when compared with Verre and Steinway (yes, I get those are residential buildings, but we can still do much better than this with a bulky footprint). Height is nice, but I really hope this design changes significantly.

[chris08876]

I'm kinda curious with the facade. While we can get an idea of it with the high res version, I think a closer shot is needed to really study if there is anything unique with it (materials/contrast). I think the top is what irks folks. It somewhat has a resemblance to 432 Park. But maybe it'll grow on us once we see closer facade renderings.

According to several people who have seen Macklowe's proposal, he has envisioned a clear, plastic or glass-enclosed slide that would protrude from the building's exterior,

I wonder what they are refering to when the say "plastic". IDK, but the word plastic sounds cheap.

[chris08876]

The YIMBY article is out on this.

That 1 foot though. Barnett must be like WTF. Because saying your the tallest tower by roof height is further ammo for sales. Being 2nd? 2nd sucks. Isn't as good as 1st! Kinda like a Gold medal is way better than Silver, and Gold is worth more anyways when it comes to commodities.


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Harry Macklowe’s “Tower Fifth” To Become New York City’s Tallest Building By Roof Height, Rising 1,551′ To Pinnacle At 5 East 51st Street, In Midtown East

Skyline-defining towers have proliferated across the Midtown and Lower Manhattan skylines since the start of the 2010s, with the new World Trade Center joined by clusters in Hudson Yards, and 57th Street. Now, as One Vanderbilt approaches the 1,000-foot mark, a new race is appearing on the horizon in Midtown East. First, JPMorgan announced plans for a 1,400-foot-plus behemoth at 270 Park Avenue. Today, renderings have been released for Harry Macklowe’s planned office tower at 5 East 51st Street, which the developer has dubbed “Tower Fifth”. The supertall would become the tallest building in New York City by roof height upon completion, soaring 1,551 feet above the streets down below.

While plans for the new tower have been circulating for several months as Macklowe has assembled the site, Charles Bagli of the New York Times scooped the rendering reveal yesterday evening.

As Mr. Macklowe told the Times, “Tall buildings are a reality. The days of restrictions on buildings are really over. This is a building that’s never been built before, a 21st-century building.”


The renderings for the tower, featuring design by Dan Shannon of Moed de Armas & Shannon Architects and Gensler, confirm Macklowe’s towering ambitions. The overall envelope and appearance appear to mix several contemporary styles. Up top, a cantilevering observation deck utilizes the same form as 56 Leonard, but in a public-facing format that will yield the city’s highest observation deck, consisting of multiple floors. The very top also appears to be characterized by a diagrid of crossbeams, reminiscent of Jean Nouvel’s 53 West 53rd Street.

Below, the overall bulk of the tower is a clear echo of Macklowe’s skyline-defining triumph located six blocks to the northeast, at 432 Park Avenue. Spanning 5-9 East 51st Street and 12-20 East 52nd Street, the specific address for “Tower Fifth” has not yet been decided upon, but the supertall borrows several of 432 Park’s design motifs, like soaring floor heights, interspersed cut-outs for mechanicals and wind resistance, and a skinny profile, to achieve the kind of towering ambition that is becoming increasingly prevalent all across Manhattan.

Notably, the rendering is also angled in a way that Tower Fifth completely blocks Central Park Tower, which it will surpass in height by a single foot.

With 96 floors, the building will become the third-tallest office tower by floor count, beat only by the Empire State Building’s 102 levels and One World Trade Center’s 104 floors. While Tower Fifth may be challenged by 270 Park Avenue pending that project’s finalization, the floor total of 96 is substantially greater than One Vanderbilt’s mere 67 stories, which result in a 1,401-foot parapet thanks to its uppermost architectural ornamentation. In the case of “Tower Fifth,” the bulk of the tower will continue all the way to the rooftop. However, the rendering does not depict how the cantilever will look, as according to Bagli, the building sits atop two 400-foot-tall stilts before yielding to the majority of its occupied space.


[...]


No completion date has been confirmed yet, and plans must first traverse several layers of City Planning, as the proposed design is beyond the current allowed scope of the site even with the Midtown East rezoning.

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NYY

[chris08876]

The CTBUH hasn’t added this tower yet, but just a snap shot of whats rising in the 300m category or planned/complete.

[pico44]

Originally Posted by Crawford

You realize Macklowe built the most expensive residential tower in NYC history, right? Designed by Vinoly, a starchitect.

deleted

[Hudson11]

Originally Posted by pico44

432 Park is the result a very specific quest. To build the least expensive luxury residential tower possible.

Macklowe is a scumbag cheapskate @sshole. Other than that, he's a great guy...

that's BS. 432 Park has some of the highest quality concrete in the world along with massive, uninterrupted windows that must cost a pretty penny.