Demolition work is continuing at 270 Park Avenue, where JP Morgan Chase is tearing down its current 707-foot-tall headquarters to construct a new 1,425-foot-tall, 2.5-million-square-foot home. Designed by Foster + Partners, the future Midtown East supertall is the fifth-tallest project underway in New York City.
Photos from around the site show the mid-century Modernist-style skyscraper almost completely enveloped in scaffolding and black netting. A construction crane has been assembled on the southern elevation and stands ready for work above the flat roof parapet. The building’s upper levels should begin to come down, gradually eroding the height of the old skyscraper in the coming months.
The eastern elevation of 270 Park Avenue. Photo by Michael Young
The eastern elevation of 270 Park Avenue. Photo by Michael Young
270 Park Avenue. Photo by Michael Young
The backside of 270 Park Avenue. Photo by Michael Young
YIMBY recently released a rendering created by ATCHAIN that shows a design scheme for the new 270 Park Avenue, despite a chance that it may be outdated. Nonetheless, it is still the closest depiction of what the final product may look like. 270 Park Avenue would surpass the height of Kohn Pedersen Fox’s supertall One Vanderbilt and stand just 125 feet shorter than Extell’s Central Park Tower on 57th Street.
New York’s construction boom over the past decade has been relentless, with multiple neighborhoods across Manhattan and the surrounding boroughs undergoing a constant evolution. Midtown East is poised to be the next great corridor for such change, with 270 Park Avenue joining One Vanderbilt and Harry Macklowe’s proposed Tower Fifth to dramatically transform the skyline over the coming years.
Demolition of the existing superstructure could wrap up by the end of 2020, while completion of the new 270 Park Avenue could plausibly occur sometime between 2022-2023.
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Oh great, one more boring glass tower…ho-hum. KB
Guess JPMorgan Chase has “skyscraper envy” and is in the race to prove who has the “biggest super tall”!
I’m wondering where all this “debris material” is going? Will most of it be recycled or just landfilled?
Jersey
Please remember the current building, (originally the Union Carbide) that everyone is in a rush to replace ( yes I know it is outdated ) is/was a ‘minor masterpiece’..let us hope the new building is worthy
Couldn’t the Starchitects advice the client of the un sustainability of demolishing a 700 foot building? If they were smart they could design the added space without demolishing the existing. MoMA set the bad trend!
City Zoning: Add a clause to require integrating existing structure in the up zoned “new” project. Enough!
I like that. But i would replace the term “required” with “strongly urged, under the reward of an easier approval”
The tallest, voluntarily demolished building in the world, overtaking the current record holder Singer Building, demolished in 1968. The tallest woman-designed building in the world for almost 50 years but because of the way things were 60 years ago, it was deemed necessary for a male colleague at SOM to have his name on the design. Column-footings for the original tower had to be poured between active rail tracks and to counteract train vibrations all columns were set on vibration pads. Same for the new? Pity about the loss of the exquisite stainless steel cladding.
Yes, the building had been recently renovated and LEED certified. The new building only adds 100k square feet but important people need higher ceilings and an F You crown. Meanwhile there are over 60,000 homeless New Yorkers, many of them are children.
Greed is what matters most…
What does JP Morgan’s office building have to do with homelessness? Bring the children in your home.
No one has ever found a cure for this “Protest Psychosis” illness. Not in 1968, nor until present. Some say it is the product of a guilty subconscious; others the superactive superego. All the same, it is a protest psychosis: meaning, they always protest, but never do anything personally to remedy it–oh, short of “discussing it” over a glass of wine, a cup of choice coffee, or in the ritzy forums like this.
Much as it plays to your gilded age narrative, the additional 100k square feet argument is made using a totally spurious number for the current square footage.
Wikipedia’s Square footage of 2.5mn is totally unattributed. Reading the various source documents yields various figures. Originally, the Union Carbide building was planned for only 1.25mn. They did add 11 stories to the original design, but that would add less than 20%. Even using 1.5mn to be generous, this new building adds a LOT of space.
On the subject of greed, you do realize that JPMC spends $1,750mn annually on philanthropy in its communities or did that pass you by? It also offers great living wages with minimums of $18p/h in NYC + healthcare + retirement savings.
Did that pass you by too?
Whilst I wish their new tower could have been built without the demolition of this lovely mid-century structure, it would seem a bit of a reach to connect an office building replacement with the tragic plight of New York’s homeless.
The company owns the building and the land – at great recurring expense, mind you – and has every right to upgrade its facilities. Nevertheless, I do hope the new structure will be architecturally worthy of what was lost.
Shouldn’t you be reading a Murdoch owned publication?
Why is EVERY one of your inane comments exactly the same? This is a forum for skyscraper enthusiasts. There are plenty of other forums for social justice warriors. Go join them and leave us alone.
Can you PLEASE get over your class envy and just accept that there will always be people who do better than you? Just as ther will always be those who do worse than you.Maybe you should go live in Venezuela where socialism has made everyone poor. Really. Please go.
Oh, Venezuela is the only option? What about Sweden or the Netherlands?
So if regulation of the 1% controlling everything is a problem, you should go live in Somalia.
I live very well…
THIS IS CRIMINAL. THIS WAS A GREEN BUILDING AND NOW CAN NEVER BE. STOP CELEBRATING THIS BS AND CALL IT WHAT IT IS – A HISTORIC AND ENVIRONMENTAL DISCRASE. SHAME ON CHASE.
I expect the new building to be “greener” than the old one…built as such from the beginning rather than working within the limitations of multiple retrofits.
I look forward to its rise.
@ David in Bushwick, couldn’t agree more, leads me to think about pulling everything out of good old JP. The entire cost of this is going to come out of investor pockets so why should they care
SHAME ON CHASE!
Most of the derby is being recycled, the guys in charge are very determined to recycle as much as possible
This is a publicly traded company.
Hard to understand how this is a better use of cash than paying a dividend to shareholders, or many other alternative uses of capital.
It’s because its investment real estate, and the real estate principle “Best and highest use”. The market will find the new building better and more valuable than a 50+ year old building. Chase and real estate investors have done the math, and it makes economic sense, obviously. Especially for their shareholders. Otherwise they wouldn’t do it.
Isn’t the new building going to be 1,225’ tall, and not 1,425’ tall?
There have been figures from 1,200′ to 1566′ in various iterations but 1,425′ appears to be the most recent.Some fluctuation may still occur before it’s actually built.
I was just wondering, because 1,425’ would actually place it at #3 on the list, taller than One Vanderbilt.
I appreciate the fact that Chase is investing in Midtown while so many businesses are chasing the next shiny new development at the expense of their employees commute. The fact of the matter is Penn Station and Grand Central aren’t going anywhere.
You know what happened to Bear Stearns when they decided to put up a skyscraper in midtown east. Just a thought…
If it is built to the 1425 foot height it will be an amazing addition to New York City. But I wish it would be 200 feet taller. So 1625. But oh well. Eventually New York City will get there. Tower 5th will be close.
I hope somewhere in NYC an observation deck is built that displaces the CN Tower’s 1.465′ “Sky Pod” in Toronto as the tallest observation deck in the hemisphere.
It tells you how much value land in Manhattan
Has become. Obviously under that consideration it pays to tear down their old building and built a new one using the same property.
Hello,
Does anyone have any data or photos on how exactly the Singer Tower/Building was deconstructed. I imagine perhaps floor by floor, with debris being gravity collected somehow. Any ideas or comments and PHOTOs are welcomed. I love NY construction history. Among my favorites, The race for tallest between the Chrysler Building and 40 Wall street back in the late 1920s only to be CRUSHED by the AIG Building in 1932, and then The Empire State made the grade shortly there after.
In Denver, Colorado The Brown Palace Hotel, August 12, 1892 share design concepts with the Flat Iron building, 1902.
Best,
MrBill
Colorado