The last time YIMBY checked in on progress at Brookfield’s Manhattan West, a little over a year ago, construction had just reached above ground level. Now, the superstructure for the first tower, at 401 Ninth Avenue, is closing in on the halfway mark, and in the past few days, glass installation has also begun.
1 Manhattan West, photo by Kevin LeClerc
Skidmore, Owings, & Merrill LLP is the architect behind the site, which will eventually yield another supertall immediately to the south of 401 Ninth Avenue. The first office tower is rising on the corner of 33rd Street and Ninth Avenue, and joins a residential building that has already been completed at 401 West 31st Street, as well as the revamped 16-story behemoth at 450 West 33rd Street, which has been renamed 5 Manhattan West.
Superstructure work on 401 Ninth Avenue looks to be at the 30th floor, and it will eventually stand 69 floor in all, rising 995 feet to its rooftop. The first glass appeared about a week ago, but since then, two floors have been completely covered. Much of the lower portion of the project is wrapped in a protective shroud, as well.
1 Manhattan West, photo by Kevin LeClerc
Besides continued progress on construction, leasing activity has also been impressive, and the vast majority of the first tower’s 2.1 million square feet of space is now taken, with about 400,000 square feet remaining. The most recent activity was with Ernst & Young, which, according to The Real Deal, is likely taking 600,000 square feet at the site. With momentum seemingly on Brookfield’s side, it seems more likely than not that the second tower will also begin rising soon.
1 Manhattan West, photo by 5B Films from this week, about 10 days after the above photos
One Manhattan West’s rise was secured by Skadden Arps’ lease, as YIMBY reported back in late 2014. Their term begins in the spring of 2020, and with work making quick headway, the building should be on track for delivery well before then.
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Please stand up and applaud. (Also your smiles)
Manhattan Island is being destroyed piecemeal by vulgar hedge fund money and artificially low interest rates. The scale and charm of Manhattan is being swept away by avarice and megalomania. The rich must have awfully low self-esteem to think these bland and sterile phallic towers are anything other than tawdry; the esthetic is bankrupt just like the US economy. At some point I would hope a cultural critic would come forward and state the obvious about these rude and grotesque monuments to moneyed nihilism. “Gigantism,” if I recall correctly, was the design esthetic of Albert Speers’ patron and the Third Reich generally but it seems to have found a happy home right here in “Amerika…”