Hudson Yards - HUGE PROJECT

[New Jack City]

The bids: Which do you like?

Brookfield Properties
Architects Skidmore Owings & Merrill; Thomas Phifer & Partners; SHoP Architects and Diller Scofidio + Renfro; Kazuyo Sejima + Ryue Nishizawa; Handel Architects




Extell Development Company
Architect Steven Holl Architects




Tishman Speyer Properties and Morgan Stanley
Architects Helmut Jahn and Peter Walker




Related Companies
Architects Kohn Pedersen Fox, Robert A.M. Stern, Arquitectonica
Financial Partner Goldman Sachs




Durst Organization and Vornado Realty Trust
Architects FXFowle and Pelli Clarke Pelli

















Thanks to Krull and Kosi!

[Tazmaniadevil]

Unbelievable potential, and if it was in Chine or Dubai, it would be built. But NYC is subject to all sorts of problems in getting these type of projects built, so I wonder what will be built. Look at the WTC site. If that had been in other countries, these buildings would have already been erected.

[urbanaturalist]

They all look pretty good. Except, I'm not really feeling the boxy shaped buildings. I like the curved buildings. Besides that, any of the projects that protect the complete integrity of the highline is a great thing. I'm definitely feeling all the open space themes. Also, I like the fact that there are thousands of residential units intertwined in the project.

[Don Omar]

need better pictures of the other proposals other than Brookfield

[3tmk]

oooooooohhhhh, me likey mucho gusto!

I vote for Brookfields!

[charmedone]

i pretty much like all the desinges but i really hope this gets built it may take some time but im sure it will get built

[Don Omar]

In Plans for Railyards, a Mix of Towers and Parks


LARGE-SCALE MAKEOVER The West Side railyards.

By NICOLAI OUROUSSOFF
Published: November 24, 2007
nytimes.com

The West Side railyards are the kind of urban development project that makes builders dance in the streets. A footprint bigger than Rockefeller Center’s and the potential for more commercial and residential space than ground zero: what more could an urban visionary want?

So the five proposals recently unveiled by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority to develop the 26-acre Manhattan railyards are not just a disappointment for their lack of imagination, they are also a grim referendum on the state of large-scale planning in New York City.

With the possible exception of a design for the Extell Development Company, the proposals embody the kind of tired, generic planning formulas that appear wherever big development money is at stake. When thoughtful architecture surfaces at all, it is mostly a superficial gloss of culture, rather than a sincere effort to come to terms with the complex social and economic changes the city has been undergoing for the last decade or so.

Located on six square blocks between 30th and 33rd Streets and 10th Avenue and the West Side Highway, the yards are one of the few remaining testaments to New York’s industrial past. Dozens of tracks leading in and out of Pennsylvania Station carve through the site. A string of parking lots and old industrial buildings flanks the tracks to the south; the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center is a block to the north. To build, developers first will have to create a platform over the tracks, at an estimated cost of $1.5 billion; construction of the platform and towers has to take place without interrupting train service.

City officials and the transportation authority, which owns the railyards, have entertained various proposals for the site in recent years, including an ill-conceived stadium for the Jets. The current guidelines would allow up to 13 million square feet of commercial, retail and residential space; a building to house a cultural group yet to be named; and a public park.

All five of the development teams chose to arrange the bulk of the towers at the northern and southern edges of the site, to minimize disruption of the tracks below, and concentrated the majority of the commercial towers to the east, and the residential towers to the west, where they would have views of the Hudson River.

But none of the teams have fully explored the potentially rich relationship between the railyards and the development above them, an approach that could have added substance to the plans. Nor did any find a successful way to come to terms with the project’s gargantuan scale.



The proposal by the Related Companies would transform the site into a virtual theme park for Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation, the developer’s main tenant. The design, by a team of architects that includes Kohn Pedersen Fox, Arquitectonica and Robert A. M. Stern, would be anchored at its eastern end by a 74-story tower. Three slightly smaller towers would flank it, creating an imposing barrier between the public park and the rest of the city to the east.

The plan also includes a vast retail mall and plaza between 10th and 11th Avenues, which could be used by News Corporation for advertising, video projections and outdoor film and concert events — a concept that would essentially transform what is being hailed as a public space into a platform for corporate self-promotion.



A proposal by FXFowle and Pelli Clarke Pelli for the Durst Organization and Vornado Realty Trust is slightly less disturbing. Following a similar plan, it would be anchored by a new tower for Condé Nast Publications to the north, and a row of residential towers extending to the west. Sinuous, elevated pedestrian walkways would wind their way through the site just above the proposed public park. The walkways are meant to evoke a contemporary version of the High Line, the raised tracks being converted into a public garden just to the south. But their real precedents are the deadening elevated streets found in late Modernist housing complexes.



By comparison, the proposal by Tishman Speyer Properties, designed by Helmut Jahn, at least seems more honest. The site is anchored by four huge towers that taper slightly as they rise, exaggerating their sense of weight and recalling more primitive, authoritarian forms: you might call it architecture of intimidation. As you move west, a grand staircase leads down to a circular plaza that would link the park to a pedestrian boulevard the city plans to construct from the site north toward 42nd Street.

Mr. Jahn built his reputation in the 1980s and ’90s, when many modern architects were struggling to pump energy into work that had become cold and alienating. Over all, the design looks like a conventional 1980s mega-development: an oddly retro vision of uniform glass towers set around a vast plaza decorated with a few scattered cafes. (In a rare nice touch, Mr. Jahn allows some of his towers to cantilever out over the deck of the High Line, playing up the violent clash between new and old.)



Another proposal, by Brookfield Properties, is an example of how real architectural talent can be used to give a plan an air of sophistication without adding much substance. Brookfield has included a few preliminary sketches of buildings by architectural luminaries like Diller Scofidio & Renfro and the Japanese firm Kazuyo Sejima & Ryue Nishizawa, but the sketches are nothing more than window dressing. The proposal includes a retail mall and commercial towers along 10th Avenue, which gives the public park an isolated feel. A hotel and retail complex cuts the park in two, so that you lose the full impact of its sweep.



For those who place urban-planning issues above dollars and cents, the Extell Development Company’s proposal is the only one worth serious consideration. Designed by Steven Holl Architects of New York, the plan tries to minimize the impact of the development’s immense scale. Most of the commercial space would be concentrated in three interconnecting towers on the northeast corner of the site. The towers’ forms pull apart and join together as they rise — an effort to break down their mass in the skyline. Smaller towers flank the site’s southern edge, their delicate, shardlike forms designed to allow sunlight to spill into the park area. A low, 10-story commercial building to the north is lifted off the ground on columns to allow the park to slip underneath and connect to 33rd Street.

The plan’s most original feature is a bridgelike cable structure that would span the existing tracks and support a 19-acre public park. According to the developer, the cable system would reduce the cost of building over the tracks significantly, allowing the density to be reduced to 11.3 million square feet from 13 million and still make a profit. The result would be both a more generous public space and a less brutal assault on the skyline. It is a sensitive effort to blend the development into the city’s existing fabric.

But what is really at issue here is putting the importance of profit margins above architecture and planning. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority could have pushed for more ambitious proposals. For decades now cities like Barcelona have insisted on a high level of design in large-scale urban-planning projects, and they have done so without economic ruin.

By contrast, the authority is more likely to focus on potential tenants like News Corporation and Condé Nast and the profits they can generate than on the quality of the design. A development company like Extell is likely to be rejected outright as too small to handle a project of this scale, however original its proposal. (In New York dark horse candidates often find that ambitious architectural proposals are one of the few ways to compete with bigger rivals.)

This is not how to build healthy cities. It is a model for their ruin, one that has led to a parade of soulless developments typically dressed up with a bit of parkland, a few commercial galleries and a token cultural institution — the superficial gloss of civilization. As an ideal of urbanism, it is hollow to its core.


The Metropolitan Transportation Authority owns the yards.

[New Jack City]

Brookfield:

http://www.brookfieldpropertieshudsonyards.com/#/HOME

Extell:

http://www.extelldev.com/hudsonyards.php

Others don't have online sites.

[Westsidelife]

While this project is certainly amazing and unbelievably HUGE, the one drawback is that it's not akin to how the rest of Manhattan is growing. I favor more organic growth -- much like the way the rest of Midtown grew, which was over time.

Anyways, I voted Brookfield. This will be an AMAZING project to monitor. This type of flashy development for the Westside is long overdue, IMO. Congrats.

[milquetoast]

All of this over the rail yards? Interesting.

[dynamicdezzy]

Brookfield all the way! Have any of you taken a walk over to grand central to check out the models?

[cincobarrio]

brookfield, easy

[Second City]

Nice project...

[Fabio1976]

Fantastic towers !
When will be erected the 90 floors tower of the Extell and the 80 floors residential tower of the Vornado ?

[ZZ-II]

Brookfield for sure!

[johnt_gr]

Brookfield of course! They are by far the most beautiful and outstanding plan for the Yards!

[Don Omar]

Deal to Build at Railyards on West Side Collapses

By CHARLES V. BAGLI
Published: May 9, 2008
nytimes.com

Six weeks after the Metropolitan Transportation Authority selected Tishman Speyer Properties to build a vast complex of office towers, apartment buildings and parks over the railyards on the West Side of Manhattan, the deal has fallen apart.

Gary Dellaverson, the authority’s chief financial officer, said the negotiations foundered Thursday afternoon after Tishman Speyer insisted on changing the terms of the $1 billion development, which both parties had agreed to on March 26.

The change would have substantially slowed the flow of millions of dollars in annual rent and fees to the authority and introduced a note of uncertainty about the pace of construction at the 26-acre site, which straddles 11th Avenue between 30th and 33rd Streets, he said.

“We were unable to reach a meeting of the minds,” Mr. Dellaverson said. “At this point, there is no agreement between Tishman Speyer and the M.T.A. The M.T.A. remains committed to the development of the West Side yards.”

Robert Lawson, a spokesman for Tishman Speyer, said, “This is a highly complicated deal and we have been negotiating in good faith with the M.T.A. for several weeks.”

“We share the same goal as the M.T.A. and the city, to transform Hudson Yards into a successful and vibrant community,” he added. “We still hope to be able to complete this deal and reach an agreement that satisfies the needs of everyone.”

Mr. Dellaverson said he had agreed to a request from Tishman Speyer, which controls Rockefeller Center and has projects in India, China and Brazil, for a meeting on Monday, which seemed to leave open at least a faint possibility that the deal could be put back together. But he also said that the authority was considering whether to reopen negotiations with one or more of the four other developers who had bid nearly $1 billion each for the development rights.

But if the authority reopened negotiations with another bidder, it would almost certainly mean that it would get less money for the rights to the property, real estate executives said.

Developers who a year ago would have gleefully bid any price for a building or a project are now delaying or abandoning projects in New York and elsewhere as the economy has slowed and many lenders have balked at financing real estate projects in the wake of the credit crisis.

At the same time, the sudden setback in the development of the railyards is a very public embarrassment for everyone involved, including the developer, whose reputation may be at risk; the authority, which was counting on the money for its capital budget; and the Bloomberg administration, which had made the transformation of the once-industrial West Side a centerpiece of its two-term mayoralty.

“It would be a real tragedy for the city if the project did not proceed now,” said Douglas Durst, who had bid for the property in partnership with Steven Roth, chairman of Vornado Realty Trust. “The M.T.A. must find a way to keep the momentum going.”

Deputy Mayor Robert C. Lieber also expressed disappointment that the deal had fallen apart. “It’s very disappointing that six weeks after the M.T.A. picked its proposal from a pool of viable competitors, a deal with Tishman Speyer could not be worked out, but our commitment to transforming the Hudson Yards into a vibrant, mixed-use district remains unchanged,” he said. “We will do everything possible to keep the redevelopment process moving forward.”

But critics of the deal said that it should never have been made, especially since the financing for a key element for West Side development, the extension of the No. 7 subway line, had not been resolved. At the same time, plans for the expansion of the nearby Javits Convention Center had collapsed. And given the sour real estate market, critics said the developer was getting an inexpensive development option.

“This deal was unhealthy from the get-go,” said Assemblyman Richard L. Brodsky. “It never met the needs of the M.T.A.’s capital plan. The 7-line commitments were never sustainable. And in the end, every single West Side project is in various state of collapse.”

Still, Jerry I. Speyer, chief executive of Tishman Speyer, is flying from Milan, where he is meeting with investors, to London on Friday to meet with Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, according to one city official, who requested anonymity. Mr. Speyer’s son, Rob, who is also in Milan, had overseen the negotiations, clashing with city and state officials before ultimately withdrawing from the deal, the official said.

The railyards do represent a rare find in Manhattan, especially in Midtown — a large undeveloped parcel near the waterfront. Over the last five years, New York has undergone an explosion in residential development fed by a seemingly insatiable desire for housing at any price.

But the railyards also present a challenge. Any developer would have to build platforms, columns and foundations over the tracks, at a cost of $2 billion, before the first building could be erected. In addition, the yard on the west side of 11th Avenue must go through the city’s land use review process and an environmental review, a process that could take 18 months.

Tishman Speyer had developed a plan calling for four or five major office towers and seven apartment buildings with a total of 3,053 apartments, as well as 13 acres of open space, a school and a cultural institution. But shortly before the transportation authority selected Tishman Speyer, it lost its financial partner and its anchor tenant, Morgan Stanley.

In recent weeks, Tishman Speyer scoured the market for a potential tenant, to no avail. Even two companies that had been allied with other bidders for the project, Condé Nast Publications and the News Corporation, turned it down, according to real estate executives who were briefed on the negotiations.

The developer also jettisoned its designs by the architect Helmut Jahn of Chicago, the executives said. The authority had initially said it would sign a conditional agreement with Tishman Speyer in early April. But in recent weeks, it repeatedly postponed its deadline. Indeed, one minute before a 5 p.m. deadline on Wednesday, the authority agreed to stop the clock in a final effort to resolve the differences.

The developer was also negotiating with city officials over other promised West Side projects, including the subway line. If the cost of the subway exceeded $2.1 billion, Tishman Speyer wanted assurances that either the state or the city would provide additional financing. It never got them.

[Don Omar]

Van Valkenburgh Takes the Boulevard
Hudson Yards landscape architect to design linked public corridor


LOOKING NORTH TOWARD 42ND STREET, MVVA'S DESIGN, WITH TOSHIKO MORI ARCHITECT, ENVISIONS FLUVIAL FORMS CULMINATING IN A CABLE-STAYED BRIDGE.

12.10.2008
Jeff Byles
archpaper.com

Many New Yorkers are wondering how the Related Companies will muster the wherewithal for its multi-billion Hudson Yards mega-development, but plans are moving ahead for Hudson Park and Boulevard, the newly mapped thoroughfare angling north from the West Side railyards to 42nd Street.

Bringing this linear swath of neighborhood one step closer to reality, Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates (MVVA) has been selected as lead designer for the project, which will run west of 10th Avenue and include a 4-acre system of parks linking to the core of Hudson Yards.

Related’s executives let news of the decision slip during a presentation of updated railyard designs at a Community Board 4 meeting on December 1, although the Hudson Yards Development Corporation (HYDC) remains officially mum on the matter. “We’re still negotiating to select the design team, so we really can’t comment,” said Wendy Leventer, the HYDC’s senior vice president of planning and design.

The choice of Van Valkenburgh was perhaps no surprise, as the landscape architect is already on Related’s design team for Hudson Yards. The other finalists for the project were Gustafson Guthrie Nichol with Allied Works Architecture, West 8 with Mathews Nielsen, Work AC with Balmori Associates, and Hargreaves Associates with TEN Arquitectos.

Van Valkenburgh’s office, which will design the boulevard with Toshiko Mori Architect, adds the project to a busy New York portfolio, which includes Brooklyn Bridge Park, a stretch of Hudson River Park, and the revamp of the north end of Union Square Park. The office deemed the dynamic public spaces of this last project a prototype for their Hudson Boulevard scheme.

“Our idea was to take the elements of Union Square and redeploy them so they would work on a long, linear site,” Matthew Urbanski, principal at MVVA, told AN. “It’s got a civic quality and a grand quality, and the plazas end up being these fantastic places that can support farmers’ markets and impromptu gatherings."

In some ways, the boulevard is a remnant of the city’s quashed 2012 Olympics bid, once destined as a grand urban gesture leading to a stadium atop the railyards. Now, the city envisions residential and commercial towers stretching south from 42nd Street, where the project’s flashiest element would be placed: a cable-stayed pedestrian bridge, designed with Mori’s office and engineers Schlaich Bergermann, spanning the Lincoln Tunnel approach. The public space would then expand into what Urbanski called “fluvially informed shapes,” with grassy areas surrounded by more densely planted, tree-lined sections along the boulevard. Plans also call for an entrance to the No. 7 subway extension between 33rd and 34th streets, with a domed glass canopy designed by Mori. The park would terminate within the Hudson Yards site, focusing on a yet-to-be-determined cultural center.


THE PARK ALONG THE CENTER OF THE BOULEVARD WOULD BE MODELED AFTER UNION SQUARE'S MULTIDIRECTIONAL URBAN PLAZAS.

Local residents have questioned how the boulevard would link to the large public space planned for the heart of the 26-acre railyard site, which Related is developing with Goldman Sachs. Asked about the plans at the community board meeting, Vishaan Chakrabarti, Related’s executive vice president of design and planning, described the boulevard as flowing seamlessly into the complex, although details within Hudson Yards remain to be refined.

“We’re still working on exactly how that’s done,” Urbanski told AN. “It flows south to the cultural center, then there’s a movement west to the river. It’s an interesting design challenge to figure out how to create a series of spaces that aren’t all one gesture—that would be kind of boring—but flow naturally from one to another.”

Given the economic meltdown, the full build-out may take a while. But plans are optimistically afoot to begin razing the dozens of structures in the new boulevard’s path, including the 65,000-square-foot former FedEx building on 34th Street, that the city has been busily acquiring. The HYDC aims to complete the project’s first phase, between 33rd and 36th streets, by 2013.

[redbaron_012]

This is the general area of Manhattan for this project, I think ?.....( thanks Google Earth )

[JohnFlint1985]

Originally Posted by redbaron_012

This is the general area of Manhattan for this project, I think ?.....( thanks Google Earth )

this is it - but the area stays as it was - almost nothing is getting done as of now.