Related Companies, Oxford Properties Group photo. Related Companies and Oxford Properties Group have teamed up with 25 design,
construction, engineering and
consulting firms to create
Hudson Yards.
Hudson Yards is the largest private real estate development in the history of the United States and the largest development in New York City since Rockefeller Center. When completed in 2025, 125,000 people a day will work in, visit or call Hudson Yards their home. The site will include more than 17 million sq. ft. (1.5 million sq m) of commercial and residential space; more than 100 shops; a collection of restaurants; approximately 4,000 residences; The Shed, a new center for artistic invention; 14 acres of public open space; a 750-seat public school; and an Equinox- branded luxury hotel with more than 200 rooms. The Yards is touted as offering “unparalleled amenities” to residents, employees and guests, and creating 23,000 construction jobs.
To complete the 28-acre Hudson Yards development, two “platforms” must be constructed to bridge more than 30 active Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) train tracks, three subsurface rail tunnels utilized by Amtrak and New Jersey Transit, and a fourth passageway, the Gateway tunnel, completed in late 2014. The finished buildings' foundations extend through the platform and rise above. The platforms will cover approximately three-quarters of the Eastern and Western Yards.
The platform and buildings above the Eastern Yard are supported by a total of 300 caissons, ranging from 4 to 5 ft. (1.2 to 1.5 m) in diameter and 20 to 80 ft. (6 to 24 m) in depth, which will be drilled deep into the bedrock in strategic locations between existing railroad tracks. The platform on the Eastern Yard utilizes 25,000 tons (22,680 t) of steel, 14,000 cu. yds. (10,704 cu m) of concrete and weighs more than 35,000 tons (31,751 t). Preliminary preparations on the Eastern Yard platform began at the end of 2013 and caisson drilling started in March 2014. Engineers Thornton Tomasetti and Langan Engineering & Environmental Services led construction of the 10-acre platform, which began in 2014 and will be complete this year.
More than 7 million sq. ft. (650,321 sq m) of construction on Manhattan's West Side are underway at Hudson Yards. Erection of the structural steel columns, beams and trusses began in fall 2014. The Eastern Yard platform will be completed in 2016. Throughout all of the project's construction, the LIRR, Amtrak and New Jersey Transit trains will remain operational.
Office Space
The 52-story 10 Hudson Yards, opened in May, is a LEED Platinum-designed tower by acclaimed global architects Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates (KPF). It stands 895 ft. (273 m) tall and offers state-of-the-art commercial offices, ground-floor retail space, and a direct connection to the 1-million-sq.-ft. (92,903 sq m) Shops and Restaurants at Hudson Yards. The building is being managed by Related Management whose “innovative focus on the employee and visitor experience further distinguishes 10 Hudson Yards in the commercial office market.” The new No. 7 Subway station, which opened last fall, is located adjacent to Hudson Yards.
Residential
The first residential tower to open at Hudson Yards, 15 Hudson Yards will be a combination of art, fashion, commerce and design. The 88-story building, designed by Diller Scofidio + Renfro in collaboration with Rockwell Group, will be among the tallest in New York City. It boasts an elegant silhouette with a distinctive shape defined by gradual curves that form four graceful arcs of glass.
15 Hudson Yards offers five distinct residence types, ranging from one-bedroom layouts overlooking the High Line to duplex penthouses with panoramic city views, 26-ft. (8 m) ceilings and more than 5,000 sq. ft. (464.5 m) of living space. All homes offer wide-plank oak flooring, hand-selected materials and kitchen appliances by Miele; residents can select from two interior design palettes.
Set in the center of Hudson Yards on the site's public square, the building will overlook the new design installation by Heatherwick Studio and will connect directly with The Shed, New York's forthcoming center for artistic invention.
The Shops & Restaurants
The Shops & Restaurants at Hudson Yards will be situated between 10 and 30 Hudson Yards, offering a 1 million-sq.-ft. (92,903 sq m) retail center to visitors and residents. The collection of shops — featuring A-listers Neiman Marcus, Tory Burch, Zara, Coach, Stuart Weitzman and H&M — will open in 2018.
Designed by Elkus Manfredi Architects as a captivating interior space, as well as a vantage point for viewing the Public Square, this multi-level retail center hopes to become a quintessential New York experience. The Shops also will offer convenient access to the High Line and the new No. 7 Subway station.
Howard Elkus has designed other notable mixed-use projects, including Boston's Copley Place, Chicago's 730 North Michigan Avenue Peninsula Hotel block, Seattle's Pacific Place, The Paramount in San Francisco, CityPlace in West Palm Beach and, most recently, the 27-acre Miami World Center. Mr. Elkus' current international work includes major mixed-use projects on prominent sites in Abu Dhabi, Istanbul, Toronto and Montreal, as well as a new town in the center of Israel.
The Restaurants, curated by Chef Thomas Keller and restaurateur and developer Kenneth Himmel, will bring together a collection of “New York's most celebrated cuisine.”
“The Hudson Yards development will have the tallest outdoor observation deck in the Big Apple, beating out the view from the Empire State Building by 50 feet. The deck will be 1,100 feet in the air and stretch more than 5,000 square feet, boasting spectacular 360-degree views of Manhattan and beyond,” said Joanna Rose, a spokeswoman for the Related Companies to the New York Post.
The Shed
Another piece of the puzzle — The Shed — will be a new center for artistic invention in New York. Scheduled to open in spring 2019, The Shed will commission and present new work by artists across many disciplines, including music, art, dance and performance art. The Shed will be adjacent to 15 Hudson Yards and border the Public Square and Gardens.
Purpose-built to complement The Shed's programmatic vision, the building is designed to operate in various configurations and to offer multiple events simultaneously.
The structure comprises two principal components: a six-level fixed building, and a telescoping outer shell that deploys over the adjoining plaza to provide a 120-ft.- (36.6 m) high, light-, sound- and temperature-controlled hall that can serve an infinite variety of needs and uses, including a theater seating 1,250 or a standing audience of 3,000. The fixed building includes two large-scale column-free galleries comprising 25,000 sq. ft. (2,322.5 sq m); a 500-seat theater; event and rehearsal space; and a free lab for early career local artists to experiment.
The building is able to expand and contract by rolling the telescoping shell on rails. When the shell is nested over the fixed section, the 20,000-sq.-ft. (1,858 sq m) plaza will be open public space that can also be used for outdoor programming.
Open Space for the 21st Century
Hudson Yards is an oasis of urban green space, set where three of New York City's newest and most unique parks come together. The creators of Hudson Yards have devoted half of the site area to verdant open space, creating 14 acres of new parks, plazas and playgrounds. Designed by Nelson Byrd Woltz Landscape Architects, the public square will be the heart of Hudson Yards, offering gardens, seating areas and a year-round calendar of events. The neighborhood is ringed by three distinct city parks, giving residents direct access to the 500 waterfront acres of Hudson River Park, as well as the new Hudson Park & Boulevard and the iconic 1.5-mi. (2.4 km) elevated park, the High Line.
The High Line, Hudson River Park, and the new Hudson Park & Boulevard make up an incomparable network of green spaces that will create a seamless path from West 14th Street to West 42nd Street with Hudson Yards at its center. More than $790 million in public investment has been earmarked for parks and green space in the Hudson Yards district.
Hudson Park & Boulevard
As part of the bold plans of Hudson Yards the city is cutting a major new thoroughfare through the Manhattan street grid. With more than $30 million set for park construction, Hudson Park & Boulevard will change the landscape of the city.
The park stretches from West 42nd Street to Hudson Yards at West 34th Street. Two entrances to the new No. 7 Subway are located in the park at 33rd and 35th Streets.
Public Square & Gardens
Nearly one-half of Hudson Yards is set aside as open space and parkland that winds through retail, residential and commercial buildings. The focal point that connects these elements is the Public Square and Gardens, a six-acre space of lush greenery and cultural expression with more than 28,000 plants, including some 200 mature trees.
Like all of Hudson Yards, the Public Square and Gardens are built on a specialized platform over working train tracks — a circumstance that presents a challenge for soil, irrigation and planting strategies. Designer Thomas Woltz and his team at Nelson Byrd Woltz have introduced a one-of-a-kind cooling system to protect roots from the train heat below, and summer heat above, for year-round planting.
In addition, rainwater will be collected into a 60,000-gal. tank and used for irrigation — an innovation that lessens the burden on New York City's infrastructure and will help keep the Hudson River clean.
Thomas Woltz calls the Public Square and Gardens the “living room of the West Side” — a crossroads where three of the city's most dynamic parks coalesce into an important community space.
The Vessel
The Public Square and Gardens is more than a simple park though — it's a gathering place where Vessel, the centerpiece of the Public Square and Gardens, created by Thomas Heatherwick and Heatherwick Studio, is a new kind of public landmark: engaging and interactive, meant to be climbed and explored.
Comprised of 154 intricately interconnecting flights of stairs — almost 2,500 individual steps — and 80 landings, Vessel will lift the public up, offering a multitude of ways to engage with and experience New York, Hudson Yards and each other. In total, Vessel will offer a mile's worth of pathway rising up above the Gardens.
Influenced by Indian stepwells, made from hundreds of flights of stairs going down into the ground, the dramatic design of Vessel creates a stage set for New Yorkers and visitors from around the world: geometric lattice of intersecting flights of stairs, whose form rises from a base that is 50 ft. (15 m) in diameter that widens at the top to 150 ft. (46 m). It is constructed of a structural painted steel frame, its underside surfaces covered by a polished copper-colored steel skin.
More on The Yards…
• Connected Neighborhood — Communications will be supported by a fiber loop, designed to optimize data speed and service continuity for rooftop communications, as well as mobile, cellular and two-way radio communications, allowing continuous access via wired and wireless broadband performance from any device at any onsite location.
• Responsive Neighborhood — Hudson Yards will harness big data to innovate, optimize, enhance and personalize the employee, resident and visitor experience. Supported by an advanced technology platform, operations managers will be able to monitor and react to traffic patterns, air quality, power demands, temperature and pedestrian flow to create a highly efficiently navigated and environmentally attuned neighborhood in New York.
• Clean, Responsible Neighborhood — Hudson Yards aims to make organic waste collection convenient and space efficient by utilizing grinders, dehydrators and bioreactors to convert food-service organic waste to dry fertilizer at 10 percent of its initial weight and size.
Additionally, nearly 10 million gal. of storm water will be collected per year from building roofs and public plazas, then filtered and reused in mechanical and irrigation systems to conserve potable water for drinking and reducing stress on New York's sewer system.
• Reliable, Efficient Neighborhood — Hudson Yards will have the onsite power-generation capacity to keep basic building services, residences and restaurant refrigerators running. Hudson Yards' first of its kind microgrid and two cogeration plants will save 24,000 MT of CO2e greenhouse gases from being emitted annually (that's equal to the emissions of 2,200 American homes or 5,100 cars) by generating electricity, hot and chilled water for the neighborhood with over twice the efficiency of conventional sources.
With more than 8.5 million sq. ft. (789,676 sq m) of residential, commercial and retail space now under construction or operational, Hudson Yards is on track to open the entire first phase by 2019. Sales for the residences at 15 Hudson Yards and 35 Hudson Yards will launch later this year. Fifty-Five Hudson Yards, home to law firms Boies, Schiller & Flexner and Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy LLP, will open in 2018. The 1-million-sq.-ft. retail center and 6-acre public plaza will open in the fall of 2018, followed in 2019 by 30 Hudson Yards, the commercial office tower that will house KKR, Wells Fargo Securities, TimeWarner, HBO and CNN.
For more information, visit www.hudsonyardsnewyork.com.
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