[NYguy]

http://www.dallasnews.com/business/r...ighborhood.ece

Essay: Why Neiman Marcus picked a New York neighborhood





By MARIA HALKIAS
20 October 2014

When you think of an urban renewal project built around a working train yard, you may not think Neiman Marcus. But a New York developer knew better — and Neiman’s agreed.

Neiman Marcus announced last month that its first New York City store will open in 2018 in The Shops at Hudson Yards.

I dropped by the site when I visited New York a couple of weeks ago.
Hudson Yards is across the street from the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center. Lots of visitors go to the Javits Center for business and trade shows but get a hotel room in a different part of town.

Here’s why the smart folks at Neiman Marcus picked the location:

Companies want in. The area is being called “the new commercial district on the Far West Side of Manhattan,” not only by Hudson Yards developers Related Cos. and Oxford Properties Group, but in articles in The New York Times.

JPMorgan Chase, the nation’s largest bank, is working on a deal to build its headquarters next door.

Hudson Yards’ first high-rise is already under construction and scheduled to be completed next year. The 52-story building will house the headquarters of Coach, L’Oreal USA and SAP. HBO and Warner Bros.’ parent company, Time Warner, has committed to another tower and plans to move 5,000 employees there.

Related Cos. also says it has a commitment to host one of the city’s biggest events at The Shops of Hudson Yards: Fashion Week.

Neiman Marcus will build a store the size of its NorthPark Center location on the top three floors of The Shops at Hudson Yards, a seven-level, 1-million-square-foot vertical mall that’s part of the $20 billion project. Related is forecasting annual sales for the mall of about $1 billion based on its Columbus Circle shopping center on the Upper East Side. (The new mall will be half the size of NorthPark, and that’s what NorthPark pulls in annually.)

The mall is in a 28-acre development that will straddle 11th Avenue on platforms being built over the Hudson Yards. If all of its towers are built, it will change one of the most famous skylines in the world.

The two platforms will bridge over 30 active Long Island Rail Road tracks. It doesn’t look like it, but 38 percent of the area between the tracks is for caissons that are being drilled deep into bedrock for support. A bridge of trusses between the columns will also hold up the platforms.

Finally, the Hudson Yards development benefits from yet another relatively new feature in Manhattan. The northernmost part of the High Line, an elevated walking park, starts just outside what will be the Neiman Marcus building on 34th Street.

That section of the 1.48-mile-long park opened in September and has great views of the Hudson Yards construction and the Hudson River. I recommend going to this part of the High Line to get a view of the construction. If you can, go see it before the train yards, which continue to operate, are covered up.