At the beginning of this year, Governor Andrew Cuomo announced a major redevelopment initiative for the area surrounding New York City’s Pennsylvania Station. Referred to as the “Empire State Complex,” the project team is now completing a final scope of work, which will take into consideration the many comments received from community activists, experts, and officials since a scoping meeting on July 20, 2020.
The second quarter of 2020, without a doubt, has brought more upheaval to New York and the United States at large than any period since September of 2001. However, in spite of all of the challenges, the city is continuing to grow: 476 new building permits were filed in the three-month period from April through June, spanning 9,309 multi-family units, with the full rundown of all the new developments in Excel format available at the link. While this was down somewhat from Q2 2019’s 12,123 residential unit filings for the same time period, it was still up substantially from 7,010 filings during Q2 of 2018, indicating that New York City’s economic engine remains revving.
Today, YIMBY has the scoop and exclusive reveal of official renderings for the 450,380-square-foot mixed-use building coming to 2 Hudson Square. Located at the southeast corner of the neighborhood, the lot will soon house a public school with an office tower above for boutique finance and tech tenants. The 465-foot-tall, 26-story development is a joint venture between Taconic Investment Partners and Nuveen, after the pair acquired the land in a 99-year lease from Trinity Real Estate, the real estate branch of Trinity Church. SHoP Architects is responsible for the design.
When it comes to new development in New York City, one of the most prolific and notable of the current firms in existence is The Durst Organization, which previously led the construction of One World Trade Center in a public-private partnership with The Port Authority. YIMBY recently interviewed its eponymous head, Douglas Durst, who gave updates on the firm’s major new Long Island City project, dubbed Sven, as well as a range of other topics.
Recently, new developments and re-zonings promising community and retail amenities alongside thousands of new affordable housing units have been stymied in Two Bridges and Inwood. Now, plans for substantial injections of the aforementioned components by the Olnick Organization at Harlem‘s Lenox Terrace have been attacked as well. Spearheaded by Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer, the latest effort constitutes a contemporary example of redlining, and is an explicit violation of the National Civil Rights Act of 1968.
