Bold Huge Westside Plan

[Vlad the Great]

a huge office tower that soars 70 stories. The mayor and his economic development czar, Daniel Doctoroff, are planning such a tower for precisely this corner.

70 stories? Office? Is this for real?!?!?!?!
Or is this one of those "generalizations" like saying that Westside is gonna have 80 story scrapers but they don't give out ANY specs.
But "precisely this corner" sorta gives the thought that this is specific no?

This would indeed be awesome if it were true! Guess we will have to wait a few years and find out...

[Stratosphere 2020]

Looks impressive.

[Islander]

Originally Posted by Vlad the Great

70 stories? Office? Is this for real?!?!?!?!

No doubt about that. Have you seen the pictures of the models they made to reprisent the westside developement? It featured at least one tower that looked to be about the ESB's size. Other articles indicate the possibility of 80+ floor office buildings!

[New Jack City]

Originally Posted by Vlad the Great

70 stories? Office? Is this for real?!?!?!?!
Or is this one of those "generalizations" like saying that Westside is gonna have 80 story scrapers but they don't give out ANY specs.
But "precisely this corner" sorta gives the thought that this is specific no?

This would indeed be awesome if it were true! Guess we will have to wait a few years and find out...

Nah Vlad, it's the author of the piece envisioning a sight such as this, not any specific proposal. Of course, if the plan goes through, we're looking at office towers of this size.

[Jay]

Sorry guys, no more 70-80 floor towers...I know the title looks good but read the rest of the article, you may just punch your computer screen with rage, there will be no supertalls on the westside site

January 13, 2005

BLOCKS

The Sky Is No Longer the Limit on Far West Side Buildings

By DAVID W. DUNLAP

"No limit."

These were perhaps the most striking words in the rezoning plan for the Far West Side of Manhattan, also known as Hudson Yards. They referred to the density limit that the City Planning Commission, until this week, intended to place on the commercial development of two blocks at the heart of Hudson Yards. None.

Developers would have been free to build towers on these blocks as large as they could. There would have been no specified maximum under the density control called the floor-area ratio, or F.A.R., which has regulated building sizes throughout the city since 1961. (In zoning districts with a ratio of 18, for instance, the owner of a 10,000-square-foot lot may build a structure with 18 times the floor area, or 180,000 square feet.)

Visions of office towers soaring 80 stories and higher were conjured by Community Board 4 last year in its critique of the plan, which described the overall density as "unprecedented, undesirable and ultimately unnecessary for the city's future."

When Melinda Katz, the chairwoman of the City Council's Land Use Committee, learned of the no-limit provision at a hearing last month, she told planning officials, "I'm sure we'll be getting back to you on that."

In a telephone interview yesterday, Ms. Katz, a Queens Democrat, explained: "No. 1, I was concerned with precedent. No. 2, we were uncomfortable as a council with passing something that basically took the authority for creating a limit away from us."

To the administration's credit, she said, a floor-area ratio of 33 was quickly imposed on the two blocks after objections to the no-limit proposal were raised. That was one of several compromises made in the Hudson Yards plan before the committee approved it on Monday, 15 to 0, with 1 abstention. It goes to the full Council for a vote next Wednesday.

The blocks in question are bounded by 10th and 11th Avenues and 33rd and 35th Streets. They are known as the Four Corners because they would be bisected by a new north-south midblock boulevard, which would effectively create four large building sites. The southwest site would be directly over the new terminus of a planned extension of the No. 7 subway line.

"You have to have density to get vibrancy," said Amanda M. Burden, chairwoman of the Planning Commission and director of the City Planning Department. "We believe that deeply, deeply, deeply." At the same time, she said, planners do not expect construction of the office buildings to start until the expected completion of the No. 7 line in 2010.

The basic floor-area ratio on the Four Corners would be 10, but a developer could add 8 by making payments into a district improvement fund to help finance the boulevard, parkland and subway extension. The developer could add 15 more by purchasing development rights from the rail yard to the south. Because of a limit on the amount of transferable development rights from the rail yard, however, not all Four Corners sites could reach the maximum floor-area ratio, 33.

While that ratio far exceeds the current limit of 21.6 in the zoning rules, city planners note that other skyscrapers have been constructed at roughly that density or greater.

"It is not much different than the buildings that went up along Times Square," said Sandy Hornick, director of strategic planning at the planning department. Cautioning that density can be calculated in a variety of ways, Mr. Hornick put the floor-area ratio of 7 Times Square (Times Square Tower) at 42; 5 Times Square (Ernst & Young), 36; 4 Times Square (Condé Nast), 31; and 3 Times Square (Reuters), 25.

The point of removing density limits at the Four Corners, he said, was to allow developers flexibility in transferring development rights from the rail yard. "We didn't really think that people would build infinitely tall buildings," he said.

There are practical limits, as Carol Willis, the founding director of the Skyscraper Museum, noted in "Form Follows Finance" (Princeton Architectural Press). "At some point in the construction of every skyscraper," she wrote in 1995, "the law of diminishing returns sets in, and rents for the additional stories do not cover costs" - including extra foundations, equipment and space for elevator shafts. These days, there is another inhibition: tenants might feel like targets on very high floors.

MR. HORNICK said the cap of 33 F.A.R. still offered developers a "fair amount of flexibility," while addressing the Council's concerns.

Even with the compromises, however, Community Board 4 worries that the plan's transfer and bonus provisions resemble "zoning for sale," said Anthony M. Borelli, the district manager.

Although the floor-area ratio has been in force as a zoning control for only 44 years, it was championed as early as 1907 by members of the Municipal Art Society. The society's current president, Kent L. Barwick, applauded the Planning Commission "for working so hard to make common ground with the Council."

Thinking of one of his predecessors, Electus Litchfield, who might be described as the father of F.A.R., Mr. Barwick said, "The pioneers of zoning understood that there had to be limits."

Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

[Vlad the Great]

I'm speechless.

[Islander]

Don't worry, it's WAY too early to get disappointed about anything concerning the westside. You do realize the construction will be going on for about 3 decades? Take all current articles with a grain of salt. Things change often.

[Ellatur]

i... kinda dont get the article. what is it saying?

[Jay]

That 80 story towers are not neccesary for the cities future.


Islander...They said the development would be finished in 40 years but many of the office buildings will go up within the next 10 or 20. this is some bad news indeed


I somehow knew than an 80 floor office tower was just a pipedream in this city.

[Jay]

(...)

[Jay]

Under new info, I belive they can actually still build 80 story buildings but have to buy more air rights, theres no official limit to anything yet I dont think.


Im keeping my fingers crossed BIG TIME.

[Vlad the Great]

^Or you could build it wicked skinny and not have big floorplates ie. 80 south street.

[lazar22b]

So I was just messing around on SSP when I stumbled across a 'proposed' hudson yards tower. This diagram shows that the building is nearly 1800ft!

http://www.skyscraperpage.com/diagrams/?

Does anyone have any information about this?

[lazar22b]

ok, the above link actually just leads you to the search area and not my results. Just type in Hudson Tower, and make sure to click "View drawings pending approval". And this will show you the diagram.

[Simpatico78]

Originally Posted by lazar22b

ok, the above link actually just leads you to the search area and not my results. Just type in Hudson Tower, and make sure to click "View drawings pending approval". And this will show you the diagram.

It say that it's a Vision not a proposal.

[lazar22b]

Under the status of the diagram I have it says proposed.

[Ellatur]

whatever the status may be, its nasty.

[giergel]

Originally Posted by Ellatur

hmm.. i think i'll have about 4 acres
actually.. we should ask all forumers for donation and buy a lot for ssc

Yes! Actually it's a good idea. If all forumers give 50 dollars, you think we could already buy something???

[7 World Trade]

the last thing we need is another glass sculpture of a skyscraper in nyc...

[Jay]

Viadas is the drawer and editor, he has been known to exxagerate and make up things for NYC. There was never a WTB proposal on the westside, there will be some very high buildings built there in the future granted but we don't know anything yet.