Friday, September 29, 2017

Citiview Tower to Become Tallest Building in Queens

A new residential project is threatening to take the title of Queens’ tallest building from Long Island City’s iconic 50-story Citigroup tower.

Flushing-based developer Chris Xu plans to build a massive 66-story, 802-unit building at 23-15 44th Drive, next to the CUNY School of Law, directly across the street from Citigroup’s 1.4 million-square-foot, 50-story One Court Square tower.

The building, named CityView Tower, is slated to stand 984 feet tall, would loom over Citigroup tower – the tallest building in the city outside of Manhattan.

It will also be 70 feet taller than a skyscraper planned for 29-37 41st Avenue near Queens Plaza, which made headlines last year for its potential to become Queens’ tallest tower at 914 feet.

Flushing developer, Chris Xu, purchased the Court Square site from Citigroup last summer for $143 million.

According to United Construction and Development Group, Xu’s development company, the project will be called “Court Square City View Tower.”

Located in the most desirable neighborhood in Long Island City, and with its proximity to the 7, E, G and M subway lines, as well as the East River Ferry, the development will provide unprecedented convenience for its occupants.

Midtown Manhattan is less than five minutes away by subway or by car. The residential tower will be surrounded by a vibrant dining scene with some of New York’s most innovative eateries and taverns; lush riverfront parks with playgrounds, fishing piers and running paths; and notable art galleries and studios, including MoMA PS1 and Sculpture Center.

The 66-story high rise will contain 802 luxury residential units and 100,000 square feet of commercial space, covering a total of 999,664 square feet.

Designed by Hill West Architects, the glass-covered tower will come with unparalleled skyline views and luxury amenities that include a pool, a communal terrace, a fitness center, and a yoga room. Some of the hi-end apartments will also have balconies.

Plans indicate that 20,000 square feet of retail space and a residential lobby will occupy the ground floor, with parking for 103 vehicles located on the second floor.

The number of apartments varies from 32 units on the fifth floor and 24 units on the sixth, to 11 units each up to the 60th floor. The three highest residential floors will hold just three apartments each.

Citigroup had originally planned to build a third Court Square tower on the 36,000-square-foot site, but put the site up for sale over post-recession concerns.


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Friday, September 22, 2017

Neighborhood's Tallest Building on The Upper West Side

Construction in Manhattan’s Lincoln Square neighborhood has permanently changed the skyline in recent years, from the Fordham University expansion to the towers at Riverside South.

But the soon to be constructed 200 Amsterdam Avenue, which will soar to 668 feet, will be the tallest building on the Upper West Side.

The building site, which was the longtime home of the Lincoln Square Synagogue, was acquired for $275 million in 2015 by SJP Properties.

200 Amsterdam will sit on the west side of Amsterdam Avenue between West 68th and 69th Streets and rise 55 stories.

The new tower will have 112 luxury residences covering more than 450,000 square feet.

The Upper West Side’s stringent landmarking means that new development like this is generally very rare for the neighborhood.

The recently-completed 160 West 62nd Street presently stands as the tallest building in Lincoln Square, at 598 feet, while on the proper Upper West Side, the San Remo holds the torch at 400 feet.

While 200 Amsterdam Avenue will top out 668 feet above street level, the building would be almost invisible in either the Midtown or Downtown skylines.






































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Friday, September 15, 2017

South Bronx Becoming NYC's Next Film & TV Production Hotbed

Move over, Brooklyn: The South Bronx may become the city's next film and TV production hotbed. this month, York Studios is breaking ground on a $100 million movie studio on a 10-acre vacant lot off the Bruckner Expressway in Soundview. 

The production complex is about 2 miles from Silvercup Studios' new $40 million facility in the Port Morris neighborhood, which opened in August.

The new production center will be the second for York Studios, which opened a 40,000-square-foot space in Maspeth, Queens, in 2012.

The hit show Elementary and a number of feature films, including The Amazing Spider-Man 2 and This Is Where I Leave You, were shot there.

Executives for the studio said they decided to expand because of the production boom taking place in the city, stemming in large part from the $420 million annual tax-incentive program that was just renewed through 2022.

Queens MediaWorks, whose principals include veteran reality-television execs and international soccer star David Villa, plans to open a 150,000-square-foot production studio for unscripted and nonfiction TV programs in Queens.

York specifically looked for space in the Bronx because of its easy access to Midtown, Westchester and Queens. The borough also offers an abundance of options for location shoots, many of which have yet to be seen on film.

The first phase of construction will yield a 170,000-square-foot facility housing five soundstages and support space at a cost of $45 million.

Three of the stages will be 15,000 square feet, and two will be 18,000 square feet. They are expected to be up and running by October 2018. The next phase will create three larger stages.

When completed, the development, which was designed by Gerald Caliendo Architects, will have nearly 350,000 square feet of production space.

The studio is projected to generate nearly $100 million in new tax revenue for the Bronx, employ more than 400 industry professionals and create hundreds of construction jobs. The city has already approved $33 million in tax benefits for the site over the next quarter century.

Last year a record 52 prime-time episodic television series were filmed in the five boroughs, a 13% increase from 2015. The city was also home to 336 feature-film projects, an almost 40% increase, according to the Mayor's Office of Media and Entertainment.


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Friday, September 8, 2017

Yet Another Skyscraper to Rise in Lower Manhattan

Lower Manhattan will be getting yet another skyscraper. A new 42-story, mixed-use building will soon begin to rise directly across from City Hall Park at 265-267 Broadway.

The project is just one of several developments which will be getting underway this year in Lower Manhattan, including a 25-story tower planned next to Trinity Church, and a 54-story residential tower going up at the former site of J&R Music, at 23-32 Park Row.

The 42-story Gene Kaufman designed tower will soar 510-feet-tall between Warren and Chambers streets, with a hotel on the lower floors and luxury condominium residences above.

An 80-room hotel will take up the first 12 floors, including a lounge, lobby, garden, and offices on the first floor, and a restaurant and kitchen on the second floor.

The next 27 floors will be comprised of 38 full-floor and duplex condominium units. The top three floors will house to a super-pricey, ultra-luxury, triplex penthouse.

Demolition of the existing 5-story office building is expected later this spring, followed immediately by construction for the new 42-story tower.


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Friday, August 25, 2017

Sloan-Kettering Preparing to Construct $1.5B Tower

The city has approved a plan by Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and the City University of New York for the construction of new, 1.15 million-square-foot medical complex on the Upper East Side. The partnership will build adjacent towers along the FDR Drive on the entire block between East 73rd and 74th street,s where Hunter College will erect a 403,000-square-foot structure for its nursing school and science research labs. Memorial Sloan-Kettering will take the eastern side of the site to build a new 750,000 square-foot, 23-story outpatient treatment center. The project is expected to cost upwards of $1.5 billion.

The city sold the 66,000 square-foot site at 525 East 73rd Street -- formerly home to a Department of Sanitation garage that was demolished in 2008 -- for $226 million, to construct the new state-of-the-art science and medical facilities.

At the time, then Mayor Bloomberg called the deal “easily one of the largest real estate transactions the city has ever been involved in.”

Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center will construct an up to 750,000 square-foot cancer care facility and CUNY Hunter College will build a 403,000-square-foot Science and Health Professions building to upgrade its science and nursing facilities. [See ElectricWeb | Blogger, Mar 6, 2013]

Preliminary work has already begun at the site, with construction planned to begin in 2014. The project, which is slated for completion in 2018, will create more than 3,200 construction jobs and nearly 830 permanent jobs according to the New York City Economic Development Corporation.

“Thanks to our innovative approach to economic development, today’s announcement is yet another step towards making New York City home to the world’s most talented workforce,” Bloomberg said.

“Not only will these two great institutions play a critical role in creating great jobs in one of the city’s growing industries, but they usher in the innovators and medical advancements of tomorrow.”

The Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center will be well-positioned near the hospital’s main campus at 1275 York Avenue and will provide outpatient treatment programs for patients with lung, head, neck and hematological cancers and will include state-of-the-art outpatient bone marrow transplantation services.

The site will also enable CUNY Hunter to create consolidated science and nursing facilities, eliminating the need for duplicate eating halls, libraries and other facilities at the current 25th Street campus, which will ultimately be vacated.


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Friday, August 18, 2017

$1Billion Glass Building Planned by NY University

New York University has announced its plans for a new $1 billion, all-glass academic building, the largest such structure ever built by the university. The 735,000-square-foot building will be located at 181 Mercer Street and is scheduled to be complete in 2021.

For the past 35 years, the Southern tip of NYU’s main campus has been delineated by a 20-foot brick wall separating the school’s campus from the neighborhood of Greenwich Village.

Now, as part of NYU: 2031, the approved 6 million square foot city wide expansion, that wall and its attached school gymnasium, the Coles Sports Center, are coming down.

The replacement will be a $1 billion translucent university compound, made of various glass shapes and sizes, opening the campus to be more inclusive and unsheltered from the outer community.

The new building will rise 23 stories and will feature an underground gym and swimming pool, 60 new classrooms, a 350-seat proscenium theater, two smaller theaters, orchestra space and practice rooms, faculty and student housing towers and a green roof, with hallways and staircases along the perimeter of the transparent facade.

University officials and designers said the see-through aspect of the building is meant to help it blend into the community, which lost a court challenge to stop the school’s plans to extend its presence in the neighborhood.

The facility, designed by Davis Brody Bond and Kieran Timberlake, will become NYU’s largest classroom building and will include 420 freshman housing units and 60 faculty apartments.
 
Local residents, students and preservationists had opposed the project for years, but a court decision last year gave it the green light.

Many activists, who include faculty and students as well as those from the surrounding neighborhood, said the land should be turned into a public park.

The parcel, which is part of a "super block" site established in the 1940s and 1950s when famous city planner Robert Moses proposed New York build an expressway through lower Manhattan, was purchased by NYU in the 1960s.

According to the New York Building Congress, NYU and Columbia University are leading a higher education building boom in the city.

NYBC President Richard Anderson said in April that both schools had multiyear growth plans and that the city’s university and college community overall was on track to contribute to the New York construction industry well into the future.

According to the NYBC, New York City’s investment in school construction tripled from 2014 and 2015, and it has quadrupled from the period 2010 to 2014.


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Friday, August 11, 2017

NYS Considers Giant Development Over Bronx Rail Yards

New York State is considering building a deck over a 13-acre rail yard in the South Bronx to allow for a massive waterfront development. The depressed urban area has been attracting more and more private investment as land costs rise elsewhere in the city.

The Empire State Development is inviting developers to present offers for leasing or purchasing the land, decking over the yards, then building a sizable residential or mixed-use project on top.

The parcel sits along the Harlem River, just north of the Willis Avenue Bridge. It is currently used as a transfer station to move goods between cross-country trains and trucks that traverse the tristate area—a use the state plans to maintain going forward.

The site is part of a 96-acre area called the Harlem River Yards, which is owned by state Department of Transportation and leased to a private company, which in turn leases out many of the buildings to industrial tenants.

Because the zone is governed by something called a general project plan, the state does not need to get any local approvals to change the zoning—say from manufacturing to residential or retail—which can instead be implemented through a state approval process.

In addition to maintaining the transfer station beneath the deck, the state wants proposals that cover opening access to the waterfront, boosting the local economy and creating affordable housing.

At 12.8 acres, the site is slightly less than half the size of the Hudson Yards development going up over rail yards on Manhattan's west side, and is on par with the scale of a proposal released last year by Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr.

That plan called for decking over a 13-acre rail yard near Lehman College, between the neighborhoods of Bedford Park and Kingsbridge Heights, farther north in the borough. Diaz predicted such a project could create more than 1,000 apartments.

"New deck construction has the potential to bring transformative development projects to many Bronx neighborhoods," Diaz said in a statement. "I look forward to examining the level of interest this [request] brings to the Harlem River Yards and how that interest could inform future opportunities for platform projects."

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Friday, August 4, 2017

Massive $10 Billion Overhaul Planned for JFK Airport

John F. Kennedy International Airport just got the thumbs up for a massive revamp. Governor Cuomo this week unveiled a massive $10 billion plan to transform JFK into a new state-of-the-art facility.

Cuomo outlined a project to create better cohesion between the sprawling airport’s terminals, simplify its tangle of roadways and build a cavernous parking lot—potentially topped with green space—at the center of it.

It would also add a lane to the Van Wyck Expressway, a notoriously congested artery that state Department of Transportation Commissioner Michael Driscoll called one of the worst in the nation.

The overhaul will create an interconnected terminal layout, increased flights, centralized parking lots and new lanes on the unceasingly congested Van Wyck Expressway.

A state-of-the-art security system that would include facial recognition technology is also planned.

The Air Train would also gain benefits from the revamped airport, with service doubling and the number of cars increasing from two to four cars per train.

Other changes include world class amenities, expanded taxiways, and increased mass transit to the airport.

JFK's makeover is projected to cost a staggering $10 billion, exceeding LaGuardia Airport’s soon-to-begin $4 billion renovation.

Governor Cuomo stated that the plan to transform JFK is part of a “greater plan for reimagining our crossings and rebuilding our infrastructure in New York.”

The number of passengers moving through JFK every year is expected to nearly double over the next few decades, reaching 100 million by 2050 from around 60 million this year, according to the governor. 

Road improvements will be paid for by the state Department of Transportation and could cost $1.5 billion to $2 billion.

Cuomo did not disclose an estimated cost for the mass transit upgrades, but the scope of his plans would likely put the expense at more than $1 billion.

In 2015, plans were released for a luxury terminal for pets, named The Ark, along with an expansive 24,000-square-foot farm just outside of Terminal 5 for JetBlue Airways.


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Thursday, June 29, 2017

New Film Studio Breaks Ground in The Bronx

Move over, Brooklyn: The South Bronx may become the city's next film and TV production hotbed. this month, York Studios is breaking ground on a $100 million movie studio on a 10-acre vacant lot off the Bruckner Expressway in Soundview. 

The production complex is about 2 miles from Silvercup Studios' new $40 million facility in the Port Morris neighborhood, which opened in August.

The new production center will be the second for York Studios, which opened a 40,000-square-foot space in Maspeth, Queens, in 2012.

The hit show Elementary and a number of feature films, including The Amazing Spider-Man 2 and This Is Where I Leave You, were shot there.

Executives for the studio said they decided to expand because of the production boom taking place in the city, stemming in large part from the $420 million annual tax-incentive program that was just renewed through 2022.

Queens MediaWorks, whose principals include veteran reality-television execs and international soccer star David Villa, plans to open a 150,000-square-foot production studio for unscripted and nonfiction TV programs in Queens.

York specifically looked for space in the Bronx because of its easy access to Midtown, Westchester and Queens. The borough also offers an abundance of options for location shoots, many of which have yet to be seen on film.

The first phase of construction will yield a 170,000-square-foot facility housing five soundstages and support space at a cost of $45 million.

Three of the stages will be 15,000 square feet, and two will be 18,000 square feet. They are expected to be up and running by October 2018. The next phase will create three larger stages.

When completed, the development, which was designed by Gerald Caliendo Architects, will have nearly 350,000 square feet of production space.

The studio is projected to generate nearly $100 million in new tax revenue for the Bronx, employ more than 400 industry professionals and create hundreds of construction jobs. The city has already approved $33 million in tax benefits for the site over the next quarter century.

Last year a record 52 prime-time episodic television series were filmed in the five boroughs, a 13% increase from 2015. The city was also home to 336 feature-film projects, an almost 40% increase, according to the Mayor's Office of Media and Entertainment.


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Thursday, June 22, 2017

The Upper West Side’s Soon-To-Be Tallest Building

Construction in Manhattan’s Lincoln Square neighborhood has permanently changed the skyline in recent years, from the Fordham University expansion to the towers at Riverside South.

But the soon to be constructed 200 Amsterdam Avenue, which will soar to 668 feet, will be the tallest building on the Upper West Side.

The building site, which was the longtime home of the Lincoln Square Synagogue, was acquired for $275 million in 2015 by SJP Properties.

200 Amsterdam will sit on the west side of Amsterdam Avenue between West 68th and 69th Streets and rise 55 stories.

The new tower will have 112 luxury residences covering more than 450,000 square feet.

The Upper West Side’s stringent landmarking means that new development like this is generally very rare for the neighborhood.

The recently-completed 160 West 62nd Street presently stands as the tallest building in Lincoln Square, at 598 feet, while on the proper Upper West Side, the San Remo holds the torch at 400 feet.

While 200 Amsterdam Avenue will top out 668 feet above street level, the building would be almost invisible in either the Midtown or Downtown skylines.






































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Thursday, June 15, 2017

42-Story Skyscraper Planned Across from City Hall Park

Lower Manhattan will be getting yet another skyscraper. A new 42-story, mixed-use building will soon begin to rise directly across from City Hall Park at 265-267 Broadway.

The project is just one of several developments which will be getting underway this year in Lower Manhattan, including a 25-story tower planned next to Trinity Church, and a 54-story residential tower going up at the former site of J&R Music, at 23-32 Park Row.

The 42-story Gene Kaufman designed tower will soar 510-feet-tall between Warren and Chambers streets, with a hotel on the lower floors and luxury condominium residences above.

An 80-room hotel will take up the first 12 floors, including a lounge, lobby, garden, and offices on the first floor, and a restaurant and kitchen on the second floor.

The next 27 floors will be comprised of 38 full-floor and duplex condominium units. The top three floors will house to a super-pricey, ultra-luxury, triplex penthouse.

Demolition of the existing 5-story office building is expected later this spring, followed immediately by construction for the new 42-story tower.


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Thursday, June 8, 2017

CitiView Tower Will be Tallest Building on Queens Skyline

A new residential project is threatening to take the title of Queens’ tallest building from Long Island City’s iconic 50-story Citigroup tower.

Flushing-based developer Chris Xu plans to build a massive 66-story, 802-unit building at 23-15 44th Drive, next to the CUNY School of Law, directly across the street from Citigroup’s 1.4 million-square-foot, 50-story One Court Square tower.

The building, named CityView Tower, is slated to stand 984 feet tall, would loom over Citigroup tower – the tallest building in the city outside of Manhattan.

It will also be 70 feet taller than a skyscraper planned for 29-37 41st Avenue near Queens Plaza, which made headlines last year for its potential to become Queens’ tallest tower at 914 feet.

Flushing developer, Chris Xu, purchased the Court Square site from Citigroup last summer for $143 million.

According to United Construction and Development Group, Xu’s development company, the project will be called “Court Square City View Tower.”

Located in the most desirable neighborhood in Long Island City, and with its proximity to the 7, E, G and M subway lines, as well as the East River Ferry, the development will provide unprecedented convenience for its occupants.

Midtown Manhattan is less than five minutes away by subway or by car. The residential tower will be surrounded by a vibrant dining scene with some of New York’s most innovative eateries and taverns; lush riverfront parks with playgrounds, fishing piers and running paths; and notable art galleries and studios, including MoMA PS1 and Sculpture Center.

The 66-story high rise will contain 802 luxury residential units and 100,000 square feet of commercial space, covering a total of 999,664 square feet.

Designed by Hill West Architects, the glass-covered tower will come with unparalleled skyline views and luxury amenities that include a pool, a communal terrace, a fitness center, and a yoga room. Some of the hi-end apartments will also have balconies.

Plans indicate that 20,000 square feet of retail space and a residential lobby will occupy the ground floor, with parking for 103 vehicles located on the second floor.

The number of apartments varies from 32 units on the fifth floor and 24 units on the sixth, to 11 units each up to the 60th floor. The three highest residential floors will hold just three apartments each.

Citigroup had originally planned to build a third Court Square tower on the 36,000-square-foot site, but put the site up for sale over post-recession concerns.


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Wednesday, May 31, 2017

NYS Considers Giant Development Over Bronx Rail Yards

New York State is considering building a deck over a 13-acre rail yard in the South Bronx to allow for a massive waterfront development. The depressed urban area has been attracting more and more private investment as land costs rise elsewhere in the city.

The Empire State Development is inviting developers to present offers for leasing or purchasing the land, decking over the yards, then building a sizable residential or mixed-use project on top.

The parcel sits along the Harlem River, just north of the Willis Avenue Bridge. It is currently used as a transfer station to move goods between cross-country trains and trucks that traverse the tristate area—a use the state plans to maintain going forward.

The site is part of a 96-acre area called the Harlem River Yards, which is owned by state Department of Transportation and leased to a private company, which in turn leases out many of the buildings to industrial tenants.

Because the zone is governed by something called a general project plan, the state does not need to get any local approvals to change the zoning—say from manufacturing to residential or retail—which can instead be implemented through a state approval process.

In addition to maintaining the transfer station beneath the deck, the state wants proposals that cover opening access to the waterfront, boosting the local economy and creating affordable housing.

At 12.8 acres, the site is slightly less than half the size of the Hudson Yards development going up over rail yards on Manhattan's west side, and is on par with the scale of a proposal released last year by Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr.

That plan called for decking over a 13-acre rail yard near Lehman College, between the neighborhoods of Bedford Park and Kingsbridge Heights, farther north in the borough. Diaz predicted such a project could create more than 1,000 apartments.

"New deck construction has the potential to bring transformative development projects to many Bronx neighborhoods," Diaz said in a statement. "I look forward to examining the level of interest this [request] brings to the Harlem River Yards and how that interest could inform future opportunities for platform projects."

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Friday, May 26, 2017

Developer Selected to Build Large Affordable Housing Project

The City of New York has selected a developer to turn a former NYPD parking garage in Jamaica, Queens, into a large, mixed-use complex with more than 350 affordable apartments.

The project, which will be developed by Omni New York, is a key component of the de Blasio administration's 2015 economic development initiative called the Jamaica NOW Action Plan, which aims to spur job growth and retail development in the neighborhood.

"This proposal builds on southeast Queens' strengths as a commercial and transit hub," said Maria Torres-Springer, president of the city's Economic Development Corp.

A request for proposals for the site was issued in February 2015, with Manhattan-based Omni submitting the winning bid. All of the units in the new building, located on 168th Street between Jamaica and 93rd avenues, will be enrolled in the city's affordable-housing program, and a portion of the parking in the building will be dedicated for NYPD use.

The project, which will also include ground-floor retail, is the first milestone of a larger effort to foster job growth in Jamaica, which is served by four subway lines, a major Long Island Rail Road junction and the AirTrain to John F. Kennedy International Airport.

Yet, despite those existing transit advantages and a 2007 rezoning that allowed for the construction of ample commercial office space and hotels, job growth and economic activity have declined during the past decade, according to the city.

De Blasio's plan calls for improving streetscapes and storefronts to entice more retail shoppers, launching job programs for residents and unlocking vacant lots for housing and commercial development. The neighborhood will also be the first in the city to get free WiFi.

The NYPD parking garage development is the only residential project specifically outlined in the plan, and was hashed out with input from local stakeholders, ensuring community support.

The mayor's initiative is the latest in a series of attempts to foster economic growth in the area.

A neighborhood nonprofit called the Greater Jamaica Development Corp. has been working for years to encourage development on a handful of large sites, and some of those projects are now starting to rise. An affordable-housing project called the Crossing at Jamaica Station is under construction, for example, along with a Hilton Garden Inn.

In August, Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced a $10 million grant that includes funding for a staff of planners to assess tweaks to the neighborhood's transportation junctions and potential new apartment projects.


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Tuesday, May 23, 2017

NY University Plans Massive $1Billion Glass Building

New York University has announced its plans for a new $1 billion, all-glass academic building, the largest such structure ever built by the university. The 735,000-square-foot building will be located at 181 Mercer Street and is scheduled to be complete in 2021.

For the past 35 years, the Southern tip of NYU’s main campus has been delineated by a 20-foot brick wall separating the school’s campus from the neighborhood of Greenwich Village.

Now, as part of NYU: 2031, the approved 6 million square foot city wide expansion, that wall and its attached school gymnasium, the Coles Sports Center, are coming down.

The replacement will be a $1 billion translucent university compound, made of various glass shapes and sizes, opening the campus to be more inclusive and unsheltered from the outer community.

The new building will rise 23 stories and will feature an underground gym and swimming pool, 60 new classrooms, a 350-seat proscenium theater, two smaller theaters, orchestra space and practice rooms, faculty and student housing towers and a green roof, with hallways and staircases along the perimeter of the transparent facade.

University officials and designers said the see-through aspect of the building is meant to help it blend into the community, which lost a court challenge to stop the school’s plans to extend its presence in the neighborhood.

The facility, designed by Davis Brody Bond and Kieran Timberlake, will become NYU’s largest classroom building and will include 420 freshman housing units and 60 faculty apartments.
 
Local residents, students and preservationists had opposed the project for years, but a court decision last year gave it the green light.

Many activists, who include faculty and students as well as those from the surrounding neighborhood, said the land should be turned into a public park.

The parcel, which is part of a "super block" site established in the 1940s and 1950s when famous city planner Robert Moses proposed New York build an expressway through lower Manhattan, was purchased by NYU in the 1960s.

According to the New York Building Congress, NYU and Columbia University are leading a higher education building boom in the city.

NYBC President Richard Anderson said in April that both schools had multiyear growth plans and that the city’s university and college community overall was on track to contribute to the New York construction industry well into the future.

According to the NYBC, New York City’s investment in school construction tripled from 2014 and 2015, and it has quadrupled from the period 2010 to 2014.


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