SALON

Tuesday, Dec 4, 2012 10:00 PM UTC

NYC breaks ground on 26-acre Hudson Yards project

By

Topics: From the Wires,

NYC breaks ground on 26-acre Hudson Yards projectNew York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg stands by by an artist's rendering of a new neighborhood called Hudson Yards as he speaks during the ground breaking ceremony, Tuesday, Dec. 4, 2012 in New York. The 26-acre site on Manhattan's west side is the planned home for a new business district. Those connected to the Hudson Yards plan envision millions of square feet of office space and housing, as well as a riverfront park and a cultural center. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer)(Credit: AP)

NEW YORK (AP) — Work to transform the largest undeveloped property in Manhattan from a railroad storage yard into a sleek new neighborhood of spiky high-rises and graceful parks got a formal start Tuesday, with developers and officials heralding it as the next big thing in a city known for them.

The $15 billion project, called Hudson Yards, calls for angular office skyscrapers and curvy apartment towers, a slate of shows and restaurants, an arts building and a public square in a 26-acre stretch of the island’s far West Side off Midtown — eventually. Tuesday marked the ceremonial groundbreaking for the first office tower, a 48-story building scheduled to be finished by 2015.

“This is the future of New York,” Mayor Michael Bloomberg declared. He has longed for years to make more of the area, which was a linchpin of his administration’s unsuccessful bid for the 2012 Summer Olympics. Developer Stephen M. Ross, chairman of the Related Cos., envisioned Hudson Yards taking a place among the Empire State Building, Rockefeller Center, Lincoln Center and other structures that became New York icons.

If that happens, it will take some time. Hudson Yards isn’t expected to be complete for about a dozen years, and it entails the construction challenge of building an $800 million platform covering the rail tracks. The first tower doesn’t require the platform.

A few blocks from Pennsylvania Station and about half a mile from the Empire State Building, the rail yards near the Hudson River have long been surrounded by an unprepossessing neighborhood of warehouses, low-rent brownstones, the Javits Center convention facility and office buildings. One of them houses the global headquarters of The Associated Press.

But the area has gained some momentum in the last several years. The High Line, a park on a former elevated rail line, has become a magnet for residents and tourists alike. More than a dozen apartment towers and several hotels have been built near it.

The idea of making Hudson Yards into an Olympic venue — the idea centered on a proposed professional football stadium for the New York Jets — spurred an outcry from residents. It ultimately foundered on concerns about traffic and financing.

Some residents also have concerns about the current Hudson Yards plan. Kathleen Treat of the Hell’s Kitchen Neighborhood Association, a residents’ group, has misgivings about seeing a cluster of towers rise near a riverfront that residents appreciate, plain as it may be.

“We want complete access to our river, which is beginning to look like Related’s river,” she said.

The city rezoned a 60-block area to accommodate the project, approved $106 million in property tax exemptions and issued $3 billion in bonds to pay for an extension of a subway line to the area from Times Square.

Officials point to the 23,000 construction jobs, 5,000 apartments — about 1,600 of them affordable — and other amenities it’s expected to create. Government agencies also are getting money out of the project: The Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which owns the property, is leasing it to the developers for $1 billion.

The city’s commercial real estate market was rocked by the recession, and some projects — including some towers planned at the rebuilt World Trade Center — have struggled to find tenants.

Hudson Yards has been seen as offering the prospect of good deals on new, high-end space near Manhattan’s central business district, said Michael Slattery, a vice president of the Real Estate Board of New York, a trade association.

Bloomberg said the groundbreaking shows that “even in this challenging economy, we are moving forward.”

___

Follow Jennifer Peltz at http://twitter.com/jennpeltz.

More By Jennifer Peltz.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
    Credit: AP/LM Otero

  • Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center in Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
    Credit: AP/Matt Rourke

  • A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
    Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher

  • Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
    Credit: AP/Molly Riley

  • Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
    Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite

  • Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
    Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster

  • O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
    Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid

  • Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
    Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield

  • When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
    Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin

  • A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
    Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments

 0 Comments

Comment Preview

Your name will appear as username

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href=""> <b> <em> <strong> <i> <blockquote>

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: Chekhov's story mirrors Russia's own

Recommendations