Plans for New Riverside South Tower Unveiled

Extell Development unveiled plans yesterday for Tower 1 at Riverside Center. The 650,000 square foot tower will be the first of five slated for the final parcel in the 77-acre Riverside South development.

  

Extell Development, which received unanimous approval for its 3 million square-foot Riverside Center development from the New York City Council late last year, showed the public its glassy design for Riverside Center Tower #1 yesterday. The 650,000-square-foot residential tower at 40 Riverside Blvd has been scaled back to 33-stories high and will boast more glass than any of the other new buildings north of it.

  

The Riverside Center project is the largest development in the neighborhood, and one of the biggest in the city. The five tower project will include at least 2,500 apartments, 210,000 square feet of retail, a hotel, a movie theater, an underground automobile service center, a new K-8 school, and a fountain that you can play in with your shoes off. The projected completion of the project is 2018.

 

Riverside Center is the final undeveloped parcel in the 77-acre Riverside South mega-project, and will stretch from 59th to 61st Streets, and West End Avenue to the edge of the West Side Highway. Extell expects to develop the parcel over the next eight years.
 
Extell modified its original design to change the heights of buildings and space them out more, and it is getting rid of its proposal to include a Costco or other big-box retailer.
    
Under the new proposal, here’s what Riverside Center would contain: 

•  3.3 million gross square feet.
•  A new K-8 school on West 61st Street - enrolling up to 1,300
•  A 250 room hotel off West 59th Street.
•  A massive underground automobile service center with a street-level showroom.
•  A shallow fountain and scrim that children and adults could walk into.
•  More than 3 acres of public space.
•  12% of the units set aside for affordable housing.  

   
By Peter Coyne / The ElectricWeb Network
July 27, 2011