Demolition work is moving along on 1568 Broadway, a 30-year-old, 470-foot-tall tower in Times Square that formerly housed the DoubleTree Suites by Hilton. Nearly 75 percent of the building will be razed to create a new 46-story mixed-use property dubbed TSX Broadway. Designed by PBDW Architects, Mancini Duffy, and Perkins Eastman, and developed by L&L Holding Company, Maefield Development, and Fortress Investment Group, the site sits in the heart of Times Square at the corner of Seventh Avenue and West 47th Street.
Tectonic snapped several photographs of the building, which is still wrapped in thick black netting and scaffolding. One noticeable portion of the edifice that has been removed since YIMBY’s November update is the curved floor plates at the northwestern corner of the building that once framed part of the flashy marquees above the sidewalk. This further reveals the structural steelwork and diagonal columns at the top of the podium level.
1568 Broadway. Photo by Tectonic
1568 Broadway. Photo by Tectonic
1568 Broadway. Photo by Tectonic
1568 Broadway. Photo by Tectonic
TSX Broadway will yield 550,000 square feet and is estimated to cost $2.5 billion. The program calls for 75,000 square feet of retail space spanning the first ten stories, a 4,000-square-foot performance venue with Times Square’s only permanent outdoor stage cantilevering out above the sidewalks along Seventh Avenue, 30,000 square feet of dining space, and a 669-key hotel above it all. Meanwhile an LED display on the southern elevation will be displayed and flash various advertisements. This section of Times Square may be dark for now, but it will soon be illuminated with 51,000 square feet of bright signage on the podium floors.
The new LED wraparound signage on 1568 Broadway across from the TKTS staircase. Rendering by L&L Holding Company
The demolition started on the 46th floor and is being done by using the elevator shafts as a giant chute to safely discard scrap material and debris from each gutted level. The process is repeated until reaching the bottom 25 percent of the structure, which will be preserved. It will be in this portion that the Palace Theater will be lifted 30 feet higher from its current position to the future sixth floor to make room for new retail space below. The Palace Theater is a 107-year-old gem designed by Kirchoff & Rose and was home to many Vaudeville performances in the Roaring Twenties as well as dozens of Broadway productions throughout the past century. It temporarily closed for the first round of renovations in September 2018.
YIMBY last reported that TSX Broadway will deliver the dedicated commercial spaces to tenants by 2021, while the entirety of the project is expected to be completed sometime in 2022.
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We must have a different definition of ‘steadily’
“Aye, aye, Captain, steady as she goes” would seem to be an appropriate mantra for this complex and logistically demanding demolition. History is replete with demolitions having gone catastrophically awry.
Am still curious how they will “lift” the historic Palace Theatre 30 feet!? What kind of hydraulics are being used to safely raise the entire building, without potentially destroying it in the process? Also what kind of precautions are there for pedestrians on the streets below when the city reopens??
There’s a long history of raising structures, both modern and historic, and also moving them significant distances wholesale without causing damage. One example is the so-called “Jackblock” 17-story apartment tower built in England in 1964. The top floor was built first, jacked up and the next floor down built and so on. Online you’ll find a description of the methodology for the theater raising. These days computer control of the process plays a big part but raising the theater, although quite doable, won’t come cheap.
Historical price. Great location. The digital ads could be worth 10s of millions a year.
Odd lot rental fee: 250 for a minute of signage. 1500 an hour. 36000 a day. Times 300 days. Is 10.8 million a year.
Certainly 5 million or more profit.
And those fees dont account for more expensive peak seasonal holiday rates.
How is this elevated theater gonna work. Ppl gonna spend 125 dollars to look up for 65 minutes.
Or perhaps a limited free show set would be done.
But at 2 billion that a hell of a building.
Wait for the retail price… Fortnite or linkedin as prime 5000k a sq foot. 15 yr lease. 25 percent dedicated digital signage.
Take that expense mcdonalds. H&m or old toyrus.