Supertall City: New York’s 2014 Boom

I first really noticed what was happening to Midtown Manhattan's skyline when I was making videos in Central Park last summer-- among the projects that I unexpectly saw was one ridiculously towering thing going up I just called " The WTF Building" ( I have run a posting or two on these supertall buildings on 57th Street but just thought I would keep tabs on what it happening at the end of the Bloomberg era).

By: Nikolai Fedak on January 1st 2014 at 2:00 pm

175 Greenwich Street

A number of towers that began work in 2013 will begin to make an impact on the skyline in 2014, including several supertalls. Activity is booming throughout the city, with major new developments rising in several core Manhattan neighborhoods, in addition to Downtown Brooklyn and Long Island City. Altogether, seven buildings of 1,000 feet or greater will start or continue construction in 2014; currently, New York only has six towers that pass that mark.

Mock-up of the NYC skyline in 2020

In Midtown, 432 Park Avenue is the most obvious candidate to change the skyline this year, as work is already so far along; the building will likely reach its 1,398-foot pinnacle within the next twelve months. Construction is also in full swing at 217 West 57th Street, and about to commence at both 111 West 57th Street and the MoMA’s Torre Verre; while those developments will still be in the excavation phase at year’s end, blasting for the projects will likely be audible throughout the neighborhood, a constant reminder of the rapidly evolving cityscape.

111 West 57th Street, Image from SHoP

Further South, 10 Hudson Yards will continue to advance, followed by 15, 30, and 35 Hudson Yards; the latter two buildings will become the first supertalls of the far West Side. With the platform for Manhattan West also under construction, the entire neighborhood is rapidly turning into a hive of activity, and its evolution this year will be quick.
Simultaneously, the fourth major tower of the new World Trade Center complex — 175 Greenwich Street — will resume its rise. The building will be the lone commercial giant of the structures rising on the Downtown skyline, and the others fall short of the 1,000 foot mark; in addition to 30 Park Place and 56 Leonard — both of which rose above ground last year — 22 Thames and 50 West Street will also be going vertical in 2014. All of the aforementioned will stand over 750 feet tall.

30 Park Place

Soaring supertalls may be the most visible legacy of the current wave of construction, but high-rises will also make an impact on the city, especially in the Outer Boroughs. Several projects underway in Downtown Brooklyn will approach the 600-foot mark, and with excavation beginning on both the Avalon Willoughby and The Hub, the DoBro skyline will see significant infill this year. That will also be the theme in Long Island City, though projects in Queens are — on average — slightly shorter, and the CitiGroup Tower will remain unchallenged.

100 Willoughby Street

Perhaps the most overlooked neighborhood in terms of potential is Jersey City; it will have two three-towered complexes under construction, both of which will enhance the pedestrian sphere and the skyline. Urban Ready Living will add three buildings of approximately 70 floors to the waterfront, while ‘Journal Squared’ represents the first major push of new development into the Journal Square neighborhood, with the first 54-story skyscraper set to rise soon.

Journal Squared – image via Handel Architects

Taking everything together — even without noting the Pyramid under construction on West 57th Street, or the 795-foot tower about to rise at 41 East 22nd Street — it is clear that development trends are pointing upwards in 2014, in every sense. New York is about to see an unprecedented vertical expansion, and its unique case of purely market-driven growth that is globally unrivaled will finally become visually apparent in the new year.
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