In June, Tishman Speyer announced that construction would start for their 64-story supertall office tower in the Hudson Yards district, dubbed The Spiral, so named for BIG’s staircase terrace motif. The look is indicative of the modern collaborative style of workspace the architects and developers are working to create. Today, YIMBY has an update on progress, which appears to be making swift headway. The site’s official address is 509 West 34th Street.
The Spiral, image by Andrew Campbell Nelson
The 2.85 million square foot tower is expected to cost $3.7 billion, averaging $1,320 per square foot. Pfizer has announced that they have signed a lease for 18 floors, totaling 800,000 square feet. The sturcture will top out at 1,031 feet, making it the fifth supertall to be added to the area. Six stories of the base, spanning 27,000 square feet, will create a retail center to draw in more foot traffic and improve the general appeal of the fast-changing area.
Rendering of 66 Hudson Boulevard. Credit: BIG/Tishman Speyer.
BIG’s head architect Bjarke Ingels previously spoke to his desired goal, saying the building is, “designed for the people who occupy it. The Spiral ensures that every floor of the tower opens up to the outdoors creating hanging gardens and cascading atria that connect the open floor plates from the ground floor to the summit into a single uninterrupted workspace.” Along with an open workspace, the tenants will benefit from sweeping views of the city and Hudson River.
The Spiral with Related’s Hudson Yards in the background, image by Andrew Campbell Nelson
The Spiral, image by Andrew Campbell Nelson
Permits were approved this February, with completion expected by 2022.
Rendering of 66 Hudson Boulevard showing cascading terraces. Credit: BIG/Tishman Speyer.
Neighboring projects including Hudson Yards phase one and Manhattan West are already tidying up with their big towers. The next towers to rise at a similar stage of construction are Related’s 50 Hudson Yards and The Moinian Group’s 3 Hudson Boulevard, the former located across 34th Street, the latter situated across Hudson Park & Boulevard.
Aerial rendering showing 66 Hudson Boulevard. Credit: BIG/Tishman Speyer.
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Please pardon me for using your space: New star in character, though its tower not take shape.
The cascading, uninterrupted atria, a nice escape route for the terrorists
Terrorists don’t consider escaping.
while the individual buildings are interesting they do not form a cohesive whole. They do not compare favorably to Raymond Hood’s Rockefeller Center of the 30’s or even Yamasaki’s WTC of the late 60’s. Perhaps I will be favorably impressed when I visit the site, but the aerials look more like Dallas than New York. That is not a compliment.
I think this is mainly due to the Lincoln tunnel exit ramps. Hopefully a developer builds over them soon.
Another glass box.
But with trees!
The rendering shows the building standing in solitary splendor, which, in reality, it will not be. Thank god.
I have to question how usable those outdoor spaces will be throughout the year. While I don’t track NYC weather, I can only imagine that for a goodly number of months it will be either too hot or too cold for the comfort of 21st century people with a love for indoor climate control.
Here’s hoping this building is NOT another monstrosity – like most of the other fulgies in Hudson Yards.
What a shame. A blank canvas was served up by the public who were promised a glittering skyline by developers, nearly all of whom failed to deliver on anything more than massive, fugly buildings that not only do NOT contribute anything to our city’s iconic slyline, but in fact, now seem to run the risk of erecting a forest of massive, fugly buildings that will be to Manhattan, what 4th Avenue’s “Canyon of Mediocrity” is to Brooklyn.
Or perhaps even worse: a collection of buildings that taken together are known as some of the world’s “Fugliest” supertalls.
Like I said, what a shame. ☹️
We like to call our city the “Capital of the World” – and yet, NOT a single one of the buildings completed, seen rising, or proposed via renders, speaks to architectural brilliance and greatness befitting a city that claims to be the world’s capital.
They may be engineering marvels; but engineering achievements and architectural brilliance are altogether different things.
Maybe we would’ve been better off building an Olympic stadium that would’ve served as the home for the NY Jets, and as an expansion for the Jacob Javits Convention Center after all.
Especially when considering the horrendous traffic and congestion this massive overdevelopment will bring seven days a week, and especially during peak hours at the Lincoln Tunnel, which happens even on weekend afternoons and evenings, when the principal objection given for a football stadium was the congestion the neighboring communities would face on 18-22 Sundays between August and December.
Just imagine five years from now when many of the office buildings are open, and there’s just one subway station serving upwards of 50,000 people per day in the offices, plus whatever events are going on at the Javits Center, plus all the tourists visiting the shops and restuarants in the mall(s) planned for Hudson Yards, The Vessel, events at the Culture Shed, the High Line Park, plus hotels and other residential development now also getting underway.
There’s three bus lines that actually run near, or through, Hudson Yards: the M34 Select Bus, M11 and the M12.
The M34 runs along 34th Street and often can be very pokey and unreliable.
The M12 is a disaster it runs so infrequently, and worse, runs along the fringe of Hudson Yards Northbound along the (noisy and isolated when on the northbound side) West Side Highway.
The M11 runs southbound along 9th Ave, so far east, it’s pointless.
The M42 doesn’t even enter Hudson Yards in any direction, and given its terminus serving the Intrepid Museum, Circle Line and NJ Waterway ferries, it’s hard to imagine the M42 being rerouted to loop through Hudson Yards to better relieve this vastly under served near transportation desert, that, btw, is already very congested on most rush hour afternoons and evenings, including Saturdays, Sundays and most holidays.
Oh, well, now we’re stuck with what we have – on overbuilt, poorly conceived forest of supertall fuglies, all of which are clustered around one of the busiest, and most congested traffic arteries in the world.
And that’s a terrible shame for a city that claims, or shall I say, now aspires, to be the Capital of the World as surely urban planning this horrendous, and architecture this stunningly, even appallingly, bad speak more of a city that certainly cannot legitimately call itself Capital of the World and be taken seriously.
Sorry. But these fugly buildings are awful in every way – except in how handsomely they line the pockets of the developers (and the alleged “architects”). On that score, they’re laughing all the way to the bank while snickering, “suckers!”
For Hudson Yards: Where’s the beauty? Where’s the “Wow?”
Except for the Culture Shed and The Vessel, the city – and the world – are still waiting.
They should extend the L train to Hudson Yards. That idea is literally right in front of them. Have three additional stops at 10th Avenue and 14th Street, 23rd Street, and 34th Street Hudson Yards, where it would connect to the 7 train. Add a station along the 7 on 10th and 42nd or 11th and 42nd. I don’t know why they didn’t do that originally. They’ll most likely up service on the M12 by 2020… if they’re smart, but they’re not…
But honestly, Howard is right… The only really good building in the main complex is 35 Hudson Yards. 10 and 30 are okay, and 15, 50 and 55 just suck. The original renderings for 15 Hudson Yards were actually much cooler and would’ve easily made it the best building, but they threw that away, which was a terrible move. 3 Hudson Boulevard’s original renderings were also cooler than it’s outcome. And the “diversity” between the looks of the buildings is just non-existent. All and all, while I like development, and seeing this formerly barren area get repurposed, they aren’t going about this in the right way. They could’ve done so much here, and they had so much room too, but ultimately, they dropped the ball. The second phase of Hudson Yards still looks pretty cool from the old renderings, here’s hoping not too much changes from that
Thanks for the shout out, AC!
I agree, “the only really good building … is 35 Hudson Yards.”
It’s one of those rare occasions when the building itself turned out much better than it did in the renderings.
So, for sure, 35 Hudson Yards should NOT be lumped together with the rest of the appallingly fugly supertall now marring NYC’s formerly brilliant, and iconic (for the right reasons), skyline.
As to extending the L train from its present terminus at 8th Avenue and 14th Street west to 10th Avenue, and then north to Hudson Yards, I also couldn’t agree more with the logic behind that, as having a direct subway link running from Canarsie, Queens, then bisecting heavily populated sections of Brooklyn, before offering a near river-to-river east-west crosstown link via 14th Street that also affords easy connections from seven lines at Union Square (4,5,6,N,Q,R,W), two subway lines (F, M) AND the PATH train at 14th Street, plus three more major subway lines at its present terminus at 8th Avenue (A,C,E), as well as the less immediate, but still widely used underground free connection between the 1,2,3 and F,M,L at their respective 14th Street stations at 7th and 6th Avenues would be amazing – and one wonders why this seemingly obvious “no-brainer” isn’t being more widely discussed.
However, failing that “dream scenario”, perhaps another option might be to extend the 7 train down to 8th Avenue and 14th Street instead?
I absolutely agree, this is far less desirable as it would then require transferring there for journeys to Brooklyn and Queens via the L train, and of course, makes crosstown trips, and any connections from any of the other lines referenced above, far less efficient.
But, there is one thing that may may that inferior “option” the more viable option (for now, anyway): the pair of “tail tracks” (to park/store trains during off-peak hours) for the 7 trains actually runs as far south as 25th Street already – so it just becomes a whole lot less expensive and time consuming to start at 25th Street for any extension down to 14th Street, especially in NYC where each mile of track constructed costs more than double of anywhere else on the planet and often takes an entire lifetime or more before completion ?
Just a thought – but again, by far your suggestion for extending the L train is SPOT ON!
Too bad our elected leaders are more consumed with vanity projects, instead of practical ones that might actually do the city a world of good ?