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970K views 2K replies 252 participants last post by  A Chicagoan 
#1 · (Edited)
I just saw this while reading the morning news: JPMorgan Plans New Manhattan Headquarters for 15,000 Workers. Source: Bloomberg.

The new building could be as much as 500 feet taller than the current building 270 Park Ave, which is 707 feet (215m). That would yield a 1200 footer!

Excerpt: JPMorgan Chase & Co. plans to build a headquarters in midtown Manhattan that would combine other offices into a new, taller building for 15,000 employees on Park Avenue.

The 2.5 million-square-foot (232,000-square-meter) building would be the first major project under New York City’s Midtown East rezoning plan, which encourages new office construction in the area, the bank and Mayor Bill de Blasio said in a statement Wednesday. JPMorgan’s current headquarters at the same site, 270 Park Ave., is an “outdated facility” that was designed in the late 1950s for about 3,500 employees, the company said.

The headquarters could be between 70 and 75 stories, depending on how wide its footprint is, said a person with knowledge of the company’s plans. The current structure is 52 stories. The new building, which has yet to be designed, could be as much as 500 feet (150 meters) taller than the current headquarters, said the person, who asked not to be identified because details of the plans haven’t been publicly disclosed.
 
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#75 · (Edited)
Another incredible project at the center of the world. The demolition of 51 East 42nd for 1 Vanderbilt was already a spectacle, this will be something else entirely. Not even the destruction of the Singer Building will compare.


Today is the day by Roman Kruglov, on Flickr
 
#76 ·
^I love the pic, I disagree with the comment though- I wouldn't consider it "epic" or "cool" to see 270 Park come down, I'd find it incredibly sad. Some of my happiest memories are of walking the streets of Midtown, that stretch of Park Avenue being one of my favorite places. Many of the skyscrapers there have come to feel like old friends, and seeing one of my favorites come down would hurt like hell, regardless of what anyone else thinks of its architectural merit.
In fact, it was 270 Park Avenue who coaxed me further down Park Avenue than I'd previously gone exploring, really paying attention. (I'd found Seagram, and taken quite a liking to 450 Park too, but 270 definitely got me walking further down the street instead of turning off towards Lexington Avenue where the Citicorp tower is)
 
#78 ·
No, I really would miss it, and would hate to see it come to such an end. Perhaps you would have to be an Animist like me to fully understand. Nobody wants to see something they admire and feel fondness towards torn apart piece by piece, nor do they have much use for others who seem to be positively bloodthirsty to see it happen.
 
#81 ·
^I actually feel sorry for that building. Its original architect did it no favors, and this renovation was just a poorly executed joke. I understand why it originally had no windows, but a better design might still have made it look kinda cool. (33 Thomas nearby looks like a badass Dieselpunk fortress of sorts) And done right, a reclad could have looked really cool, but this just screams minimum effort.

I felt the same way about 425 Park Avenue- that one hadn't aged well at all. Its brick facade probably looked cool back when it went up, but hadn't held up. And it never fully recovered from an electrical fire that happened a few years prior, so unlike 270 it wasn't functioning well. (270 might work beautifully for other tenants, it's only problem is that its current occupant needs more space) I also like that they kept part of the base building, so in a way, what's going on now is more of a drastic rebuild than anything.

I'm pretty sure that if Chase had decided to put its new tower where Verizon now stands, this project wouldn't be anywhere near as controversial.
 
#82 ·
^^ I dont think that the only problem here is, that Chase needs more space. I can imagine that the floors arent very flexible due to the columns, maybe they cant up date the building fully to todays standarts, natural light inside the tower, maybe issues to fit out modern trading floors or so. From a logical standpoint i feel like making such a decission as to raze such a tower and replace it took a lot of brainstorming beforehand and i feel like they wouldnt put so much effort into this project if there would be a simple problem that could be solved easier than what they plan to do.
 
#93 ·
I was really blindsided by this news since it first broke during the Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, and since then, I couldn't bring myself to state that I do not support the demolition of any building with a height of over 200 meters, or that I do not support the demolition of any LEED-certified building of any certification level. I just never thought such a demolition would actually happen in my lifetime.

Also, it is always sad to see a piece of land having more value than the building that sits on that land, so good and still-useful buildings on that land always end up demolished because of this. JPMorgan Chase should have thought about buying itself a new headquarters on, say, the West Side and let other tenants occupy 270 Park Avenue instead. This is going to be a really big loss (maybe the biggest since the original Penn Station and the original World Trade Center) if this demolition becomes reality.
 
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#94 · (Edited)
not much of a shocker here going with AECOM. The tentative timeframe is a bit surprising. Was this written poorly, or does JP Morgan actually plan on taking down this 200m skyscraper in roughly a year? I'm guessing TRD meant the demolition will start then.

AECOM Tishman tapped to build 270 Park Avenue: sources
The company was tapped to build a new, 70-story office tower that will span 2.5 million square feet, sources said. JPMorgan plans to raze the existing 52-story building and begin construction on the new tower by 2019.
[...]
The deal has not yet been finalized, sources said.
 
#101 ·
The current tower is very nice for a building of the time, but if the new tower has a contemporary design and happens to be more interesting than a blue glass box, i say it's a win. A fantastic bank building like you see in China, something hyper modern, would really stand out in the area.
 
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