8/8/2023 0 Comments Vanderbilt skyscraper![]() ![]() One Vanderbilt not only contributes 1.7 million square feet of commercial space but integrates on multiple levels with the terminal. Whatever margin of error COVID may have added to the commuter count, the neighborhood’s need for up-to-date and uncrowded space is clear. ![]() The MTA estimated in 2019 that the Grand Central area would have about 162,000 more daily commuters when the East Side Access project, bringing Long Island Rail Road service to Grand Central, is finally completed (initially planned during the 1950s, currently estimated to open in December 2022). DePaola and Daniel Surrett, who provided written information and commentary in lieu of interviews under current COVID conditions). “One Vanderbilt provides office space in an area that needs it,” says structural engineer Andrew Moss (one of three Severud Associates engineers, including Edward M. ![]() Occupying the block bordered by 42nd and 43rd Streets and Madison Avenue, and replacing the former lowest block of Vanderbilt Avenue with car-free space adjacent to Grand Central Terminal, the building may be the nation’s most conspicuous example of transit-oriented development. It emerges from a pathbreaking public-private partnership involving the City of New York and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) it is essential to the reinvention of East Midtown, the 78-block area that City Council rezoned in 2017 with an eye toward relieving congestion, encouraging transit use, and upgrading aging building stock. The new building, they contend, is more than just a paragon of sustainability, with $17 million worth of investment in features that give it an exceptionally low carbon footprint for its scale. The team that gave the city One Vanderbilt, however, is looking beyond the present and near future. Timing and context call for serious questions here. There will inevitably be observers who believe a major new Class A commercial building is the last thing the city needs, and not all of them are NIMBYs. The ad hoc shift to work-from-home and flextime operations has reduced demand for office space either momentarily or permanently, as workers and organizations reassess which activities do and don’t need physical presence. ![]() Who, in pandemic-ravaged 2020, has had much room for optimism? Employment rates and rental markets have taken a hit though some economic observers were already predicting an inevitable cyclical contraction after the roughly decade-long national recovery that began in 2009, COVID-19 has driven the nation to the brink of a new Great Depression, with a special impact on the densest cities. It is also an experiment well worth the attention of anyone who’s curious how the built environment will respond to, and help shape, a future that no one saw coming.Īny supertall skyscraper is, among other things, an embodiment of optimism. At 1,401 feet, One Vanderbilt is the tallest office tower in Midtown and the fourth tallest building of any type in the city. Viewing the spires of the Chrysler and Empire State Buildings from above was once a perspective afforded only from aircraft. The views from high floors at One Vanderbilt, the 77-story Kohn Pedersen Fox-designed tower that opened last September, can induce a moment of awe in even the most jaded New Yorker. Visually aggressive and environmentally progressive, the new office tower overlooking Grand Central Terminal-a model of sustainable transit-oriented development, constructed under budget and ahead of schedule-looks beyond the COVID era to a day when East Midtown will thrum and thrive again. ![]()
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