Posted Mar 8, 2012, 12:02 PM
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New Yorker for life
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Join Date: Jul 2001
Location: Borough of Jersey
Posts: 52,021
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http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2012/03...r-builder.html
The Last Master Builder
Stephen Ross is putting his billions, and his legacy, on the line to fix Manhattan's West Side-
and prove that private developers can still profitably transform the urban landscape.
Morgan Brennan
03.07.12
Quote:
Staring across Manhattan’s last untamed strip, the rows of sleek silver commuter trains sliding along the island’s only active rail yard, the Related Companies’ Stephen Ross points to the future. There, flanking the wildly successful High Line elevated park, is where the 56-story South Tower will go. And over there, on the other side of 33rd Street, where massive cranes bisect the sky, will be the new subway entrance.....If he can pull this off, Hudson Yards will become the most significant private development project in Manhattan since John D. Rockefeller Jr. spent $250 million (more than $3 billion in today’s terms) to create the 22-acre Rockefeller Center in the 1930s, expanding and recentering America’s largest and densest city.
In the 1980s the Metropolitan Transit Authority carved out train yards but also had the foresight to construct them in a way that would one day allow for platforms and buildings over the open-air tracks.....Before all the buildings can join Manhattan’s skyline, Tishman Construction, the master builder for the project, will stretch 17 acres’ worth of roughly 6-foot-thick steel-and-concrete platforms over the train yards--without disrupting service for more than 300,000 New Jersey and Long Island commuters a day. It will cost an estimated $800 million just to cover the eastern section of the project area.
Compounding that challenge: 1 World Trade Center, the 105-floor megatower rising at Ground Zero 3 miles to the south, which will open next year. Sixty percent leased, 1 WTC still has more than 1 million square feet empty, about the same amount that remains unfilled in the first of Related’s two high-rise towers. Ross is countering with an unheard-of deal for New York’s commercial tenants: the option to either lease or buy their space--at cost. In other words, Related and Oxford will not turn a profit on the office space but rather will use their tenants as de facto lenders, selling their commitments to cover the upfront costs of platform and building construction. Coach, the luxury-handbag maker, has been the first to commit, buying 15 stories of the 56-story southern tower. “We will make our money in residential and retail,” says Ross. “We don’t need to make our money in office space.”
The glass-covered, LEED-certified, high-tech new buildings planned for the Yards represent a minute supply of streamlined, more cost-efficient office space. New York City has exponentially more office space than any other city in the U.S. Yet in Manhattan, where most of that Class A office building stock lies, more than 65% of it is 50 years or older. And only a fraction of that remaining 35% has been built within the past 10 years since light-filled glass walls, energy-cutting technology and wide-open work spaces gained popularity.
Ross says that his team is negotiating with tenants who could assume up to 22 million square feet in aggregate, though that will take some master salesmanship. Hearing that the window of opportunity to snag a prospective tenant is closing, I watch as Ross tells Cross to visit the company’s president immediately--despite the fact that a meeting has not been formally arranged and that it is Cross’ birthday.
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NEW YORK is Back!
“Office buildings are our factories – whether for tech, creative or traditional industries we must continue to grow our modern factories to create new jobs,” said United States Senator Chuck Schumer.
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