Manhattan: Westside redevelopment (Hudson Yards)

[NYguy]

The new JETS stadium and Convention Center expansion are only a part of a major redevelopment of Manhattan's Westside. The plan also calls for 30 msf of office space (3 WTCs) and 10 msf of new residential space. It will be one of the city's largest redevelopments ever.

Alread though, the plan has come under fire for the huge amount of office space that will be built there.

One opposition group is already taking shots. A quote referring to the picture below:

"Demonstrates the impossible density of office towers that would be needed to pay for the whole thing."

"One might say that's unfair, that beyond the Jets facility there would also be new office towers. But those buildings are needed to generate taxes that are redirected to pay off the bonds that built the Jets facilities. Little or no taxes from these valuable towers would end up in the city's general fund".

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That's just a small sampling of the outcry that will come, but you would think these people have never visited Manhattan, nevermind live there.

Bear Stearns says that "commercial development [is] projected at 1 million square feet annually" starting in 2006 in order to make the Olympic bond payments. This makes a total of 10 million square feet by 2015, a full World Trade Center's worth.

The grind of getting 1 million square feet built each and every year would continue through 2034, at which time there would be three World Trade Centers of space. The Bear Stearns report was written in 2001.

[NYguy]

To get an idea of what the Westside development could look like, take a "virtual" walk down the new Boulevard that will be the centerpiece for the development....

http://www.nyc.gov/html/dcp/html/hyards/anim.html

Blue: Office

Gold: Residential

[NYguy]

Model of the potential buildout (zoning) for the plan

[Guest donaltopablo]

It certainly would be an exicting project, but that is a lot of office space to develop. I would think hotels could be a serious components being so close to the Javtis center to help eat up some of that floor space.

[NYguy]

We're talking about a span of thirty years, but as a matter of fact, the Javits expansion does include a hotel of its own....

http://www.javitscenter.com/expansion.htm

An On-Site Hotel

It is our intention to have an entrance to the Javits Center on the corner of 42nd Street and 11th Avenue. Above the Center entrance a hotel will be constructed with a 50-story, 1500 room capacity with a direct connection to the Javits Center pre-function space. The artist rendering below shows the hotel on the far north corner of the expanded Javits Center. We see an on-site hotel of this scale giving the city and the Javits Center an enormous asset and a strong competitive advantage.

[NYguy]

Quotes from a NY Post article....(April 8, 2004)

Guggenheim eyes Jets site

By WILLIAM NEUMAN and TOM TOPOUSIS

The Guggenheim Museum has expressed interest in building a Frank Gehry-designed outpost on Manhattan's far West Side as part of the redevelopment that would include a new Jets stadium and an expanded Javits Center, sources told The Post.

Guggenheim director Thomas Krenz has discussed the museum idea with city and state officials, according to three sources familiar with the talks, which remain at a preliminary stage.

"They are quite interested," said one source. "Museums with money to build are few and far between. There are not a whole lot of museums willing to spend several million dollars on a new property."

City planners have designated the corner of 11th Avenue and 30th Street as the site of a future "major cultural facility."

Guggenheim spokesman Anthony Calnek said the museum's director attended two presentations by city officials. "He did find them interesting, but we are doing no work on the project," Calnek said.

Calnek said the museum wouldn't take any action on a move to the West Side until the city releases a request for proposals, which would spell out what the project entails.

[Allan]

Looks like a lot of great development will be happening on the westside soon.

BTW, I read in the paper today that the Guggenheim is hiring the Pritzker Prize winning architect Zaha Hadid to design a Guggenheim museum in Taiwan.

The Guggeheim Museum, already famed for its Frank Lloyd Wright building in New York and the Frank Gehry branch in Bilbao, Spain, has hired Hadid to do a Guggenheim in Taiwan.

It's a bit off topic, but I figured I'd mention it.

[NYguy]

If the Guggenheim does build an expansion on the Westside, it won't be as big as the Downtown Manhattan proposal was, also designed by Gehry...

[NYguy]

NY Post...

OLYMPICS 'CATALYST' FOR APPLE'S GROWTH

April 12, 2004 -- New York City's bid to host the 2012 Olympics was partly an effort to speed development plans that should be carried out even if the games are held elsewhere, Deputy Mayor Dan Doctoroff said.

"What cities have recognized around the world is the catalytic effect the Olympics can have. There isn't a better way to get things done than by hosting the Olympics," he said in an interview broadcast yesterday on WNBC's "News Forum."

But plans to add office space, parks and sporting facilities in Manhattan and the outer boroughs were desperately needed anyway, he said.

For example, a plan to create a new business district on the West Side represented a rare opportunity to add new office space in Manhattan, he said.

"Conservative projections" showed the city would need 60 million additional square feet of new office space between 2005 and 2030.

[M. Brown]

OH MANNNNNNNNNNN. I CANT WAIT (this might make me a yankees fan...nah I dont think so)

[Cotuit]

Regional Plan Association A proposal from the Regional Plan Association calls for commercial and residential development along a corridor through the West Side.

Build Platform, Group Says, but Please Hold the Stadium

By CHARLES V. BAGLI | December 2, 2004

For more than two years, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg has insisted that only a football stadium for the Jets could cover the vast railyards on Manhattan's West Side that have long been a barrier to the neighborhood's development.

But yesterday the Regional Plan Association, an influential private group, issued a report stating that a residential and commercial development erected on top of platforms over the railyards would generate far more revenue for the city and the state than a stadium, and would promote development on nearby land.

Robert D. Yaro, president of the association, said the group's alternative plan would also provide a physical and visual link between the city and the Hudson River, in contrast to the mayor's plan for a football stadium and an expanded Javits Convention Center that would create a 12-block wall along the riverfront.

"From Day 1, the city and the Jets have said that the choice on the West Side is between a stadium and a hole in the ground," said Mr. Yaro, whose organization, financed by civic groups and corporations, opposes building a stadium over the railyards.

He said: "We've outlined what we think are very feasible alternatives, involving residential development on the western yard and a mix of residential and commercial on the eastern yard. You can create something more attractive and something that will serve as a catalyst for the redevelopment of the West Side in a way that the stadium will not."

The group's alternative comes only weeks before the state is expected to approve the proposed $1.4 billion stadium project for the Jets. The stadium is a key element of the Bloomberg administration's ambitious plan to redevelop the West Side, transforming a 59-block area of parking lots, brick warehouses and factories into a major business district, and it is also the centerpiece of the city's bid for the 2012 Olympics.

But the stadium, which would be built on a platform over the railyard between 11th and 12th Avenues, from 30th to 34th Street, has met with strong opposition from local residents, some Broadway theater owners and elected officials from the West Side. These opponents have said they were worried about traffic congestion and feared that the stadium would discourage development. It has yet to be embraced by any major civic group, and both sides anticipate lawsuits.

Though the Regional Plan Association's alternative proposal has little likelihood of being carried out, it drew quick reactions in the superheated debate over the future of the West Side.

Stadium opponents like the Hell's Kitchen/Hudson Yards Alliance, State Senator Thomas K. Duane and Assemblyman Richard N. Gottfried embraced it. The Hudson Yards Coalition, a pro-stadium group, sharply attacked the plan, saying the stadium "will more than pay for itself - it will generate a profit for New York, and jobs for New Yorkers."

Jennifer Falk, a City Hall spokeswoman, said the city would lose millions of dollars in convention and trade show business without a stadium, and would lose any hope of attracting the Olympics.

The city and the state plan to invest $600 million for a platform over the railyards and a retractable roof for the stadium, while the Jets plan to put up $800 million to cover the rest of the project.

The regional plan group says the city should instead simply build the platforms and then sell development sites to builders. Commercial and residential development would generate net revenues and taxes of $510 million a year, compared with only $74 million from the stadium, the association's report said.

Separately, the Steven L. Newman Real Estate Institute at Baruch College has also issued an alternative that addresses the city's waterfront, but shies away from taking a position on the stadium.

That proposal calls for building one of the largest convention centers in the world over the railyards, stretching east from 12th Avenue to Ninth Avenue, between 30th and 34th Streets. The institute contends that a stadium and an arena could be built atop the convention center.

Like the planning group's proposal, the institute recommends the creation of a commercial corridor extending west along 34th Street from Ninth Avenue to the Hudson River. The existing Jacob K. Javits Convention Center could then be demolished to make way for apartment towers.

In creating an east-west orientation, the Baruch proposal opens the waterfront to the city.

The Regional Plan Association's proposal calls for building thousands of apartments on a platform west of 11th Avenue and a mix of residential and office towers on a platform east of 11th Avenue.

From The New York Times