Brookfield Property Partners’ 1 Manhattan West will rise above Hudson Yards on a 51-and-a-half-foot-tall steel pedestal.
The Hudson Yards office tower will balance on a massive steel structure, which consists of a series of diagonal braces that will transfer the weight of the tower to the building’s core, the New York Times reported. Thanks to the pedestal, the $1 billion tower will rise 995 feet and will hang 42-feet beyond the building’s core to the north and south. The steel pedestal will be covered in travertine — a form of limestone — from Italy and will be the only support system visible from the building’s glass lobby.
The building’s pedestal differs from how other Hudson Yards projects deal with the existing rail yards below. The active rail yard at Brookfield’s [TRDataCustom] site will be covered with a concrete deck, which will serve as a public plaza. Meanwhile, most of Related Companies and Oxford Properties Group’s Hudson Yards towers are being constructed on a platform over more than 30 Long Island Rail Road tracks. The support columns in 30 Hudson Yards, for example, fall between the existing train tracks.
Brookfield’s project is expected to open in 2019. A law firm— Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom — is the building’s anchor tenant after inking a 20-year lease for 550,000 square feet. In April, Crain’s reported that the National Hockey League was in talks for 160,000 square feet at the building.
The office tower is part of Brookfield’s five-building “Manhattan West” project, which includes a 62-story, 844-unit residential tower. The Qatar Investment Authority bought an undisclosed stake in the $8.6 billion project last year. [NYT] — Kathryn Brenzel