42nd Street looking west. Copyright Miysis SPRL / Courtesy of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill
In another small way, the city is saying goodbye to Donald Trump. Renderings have been released for a massive tower replacing Midtown’s Grand Hyatt Hotel, Trump’s first major Manhattan development. The proposed mixed-use project at 175 Park Avenue would rise up to 83 stories and 1,646 feet tall, which would make it the second-tallest building in New York City, behind 1,776-foot One World Trade Center. The design, which is made possible thanks to the Midtown East Rezoning, comes from Skidmore, Owings & Merrill and also includes hundreds of millions of dollars of infrastructure upgrades to Grand Central Terminal and the subway station, as well as three elevated public outdoor spaces that wrap around the building.
42nd Street elevation. Copyright Skidmore, Owings & Merrill
To start at the beginning, it was in 1980 that Donald Trump bought the historic but run-down Commodore Hotel and converted it to the 30-story, black glass Grand Hyatt. In true Trump fashion, he received an unprecedented 40-year tax break, and by 1987, had profited more than $30 million. Though the project only cost $120 million to build, when the tax break expired last year, it had cost the city over $400 million in forgiven or uncollected taxes.
Fast forward to 2019, and RXR Realty and TF Cornerstone partnered to demolish the existing building and replace it with the new SOM tower. A press release from RXR describes the current Grand Hyatt as “an opaque, overbearing building that reduces sidewalk space and offers little visual and physical connectivity to Grand Central and the surrounding landmarks.” It explains that the obstacles it creates “extend below the sidewalk to create massive overcrowding and other structural issues within the transit network that can’t be fully addressed without demolishing the existing building.”
The reason the tower can be so tall is due to the 2017 Midtown East Rezoning, which incentives new, dense development and allows landmarks like Grand Central and St. Patrick’s Cathedral to sell and transfer their unused development rights, which will be taxed by the city to fund $50 million in infrastructure improvements in the area. According to the Commercial Observer, 175 Park Avenue will be the result of “a cobbling together of air rights from different sources,” including “620,000 square feet of transferable development rights from Grand Central and 770,000 square feet of bonus floor area generated by the city in exchange for the planned transit improvements.” (As they note, the lot as it currently exists is zoned for 860,000 square feet.)
The proposal calls for a nearly three million-square-foot building that includes 2.1 million square feet of commercial office space, a 453,000-square-foot Hyatt hotel with up to 500 rooms, and 10,000 square feet of retail on the cellar and ground floors, some of which will be run by the MTA.
As for the design, the renderings show us only the base, which gives us a peek at its lattice effect, but an elevation drawing shows us how this latticework will continue up the tower in four setbacks, culminating at its peak “in a rounded crown of luminous, interlaced steel.” This structural lattice gathers into two bundles at the base, creating column-free glass openings on all four sides to overlook Grand Central.
Lexington Avenue pedestrian view. Copyright Miysis SPRL / Courtesy of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill
The renderings also give us a look at the roughly 24,000 square feet of elevated, outdoor public space, which will be designed by landscape architecture firm James Corner Field Operations (the world-renowned firm behind the High Line, Domino Park, and Greenpoint Landing, among countless others). Two grand staircases on 42nd Street and multiple ADA-accessible elevators will take people up to three, interconnected public terraces that wrap around the building’s eastern, northern, and western sides. A press release describes them as follows:
- Grand Central Terrace: Along the western side, the terrace will connect with the Park Avenue Viaduct –creating an opportunity to pedestrianize this car-only pathway –and allow visitors to face Grand Central Terminal’s eastern façade for the first time in a century.
- Chrysler Terrace: On Lexington Avenue, the eastern terrace will offer a panorama up and down the thoroughfare, as well as a new view of the Chrysler Building.
- Graybar Terrace: The northern terrace, situated along the Graybar Building, will create a new visual corridor between Grand Central and 43rd Street while linking the adjacent terraces to allow for unimpeded circulation around the entire building.
42nd Street passage. Copyright Miysis SPRL / Courtesy of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill
SOM, whose work at the Moynihan Train Hall was recently unveiled, is also responsible for the design and engineering of the transit improvements. The current Grand Hyatt building sits atop the 4/5/6 subway lines and is supported by dozens of low-hanging girders that impede the mezzanine level of the subway station. These will be removed, improving circulation and allowing for the construction of a new transit hall and 42nd Street subway entrance. This transit hall will connect to the 42nd Street Passage and move the subway turnstiles from their current mezzanine-level location to street level, reducing congestion. According to the press release, the transit hall “will be topped with dramatic glass skylights and high ceilings that bring natural light into the station and create views of Grand Central’s eastern façade.”
In addition, the project will redesign the Lexington Avenue subway entrance, which currently bears a black-glass design to match the Hyatt and has a cramped point of entry. The new building design includes a setback that allows this entrance more space. It will also be redesigned with a transparent glass enclosure.
Short Loop. Copyright Skidmore, Owings & Merrill
Perhaps not as visually flashy as the other transit improvements, the project also includes a very important “short loop” connection. As illustrated by the orange arrows above, the 12,000-square-foot route will provide a direct connection from the lower-level Metro-North platforms and the Long Island Rail Road’s soon-to-be-completed East Side Access Terminal directly to the subway mezzanine. Currently, those coming off Metro-North trains must come up to the Main Concourse and then go back down to reach the subways.
The next step for 175 Park Avenue is to begin the city’s Uniform Land Use Review Process (ULURP) this spring. If all goes according to plan, demolition will begin next year, and the tower will be completed by 2030.
If and when it is completed, 175 Park Avenue will sit just on the other side of Grand Central from One Vanderbilt. The 1,401-foot office tower, which actually received zoning-change approvals prior to the Midtown East Rezoning, opened this past September. Similarly, the project included a $220 million package of public open space and transit infrastructure improvements. Another forthcoming nearby project is JPMorgan Chase’s new 1,400-foot-tall headquarters at the site of its current offices at 270 Park Avenue.
RELATED:
- Grand Hyatt, Trump’s first major Manhattan real estate coup, to be torn down for new office tower
- In Midtown, 1,401-foot One Vanderbilt is officially open
- Norman Foster’s splashy new office tower at 425 Park Avenue nears completion
All renderings courtesy of SOM
