also, de blasio will go down in history as the mayor that let amazon get away
not his fault, but tangentially we know who’s to blame
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The timing on this might be political. Cuomo might imagine he has a shot to face a Trump surrogate in 2024 (assuming he doesn’t throws term limits out) should Trump win this year. Fast-tracking the demo of Trump’s first big project might be a feather he wants in his cap. After all, even “fast-tracked” this project would probably take ~4 years.
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that’s pretty silly, even by today’s political discourse. It’s more likely Cuomo wants to get in on the development to continue to improve access to the Station in conjunction with the LIRR East Side access project. Improving Grand Central isn’t something to forget about even with the Penn Station improvements. Midtown East lives on.
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The footprint is pretty sizable. A little bigger than 1 Vanderbilt’s lot and with more air rights to work with.
Vandy, via KPF:
I think they’re going to go weird here. Something that opens up for views of the Chrysler Building, maybe like Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill’s One Dubai but on a more human scale. The only other alternative I can think of would be a wedge that setsback to the north from 42nd, like one of the KPF Towers of Hudson Yards or London’s Cheese grater.
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TF Cornerstone and RXR Realty dropped $31.5M on an interest in air rights over Grand Central Terminal, PincusCo reports. The seller was MSD Capital, an investment firm that manages Michael Dell’s family office. The three parties announced in February 2019 that they are joining together with a plan to pull down the Grand Hyatt New York next to Grand Central Terminal and build a 2M SF mixed-use tower in its place. This transaction is for 28.8% of the air rights parcel attached to 89 East 42nd St., per the website, suggesting the entire air rights parcel is valued at $109M.
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Great news. Those 2M square feet, combined with a view-preserving setback scheme preventing a lot-line box, could make this a challenger for New York’s new tallest.
One more view-preserving concept I would be okay with is a curved south facade that slopes away from 42nd Street as it rises, like a 21st Century version of Gordon Bunshaft’s Grace and Solow Buildings:
NYC - Midtown: Solow Building by Wally Gobetz, on Flickr
Grace Building, Wiki Commons
With an aggressive enough slope, you could shift the bulk of this tower to the very northern edge of the lot so that it’s almost entirely “behind” the Chrysler Building when viewed from 42nd. You would naturally put offices in the larger floors near the base, and residential or hotel higher up as the tower narrows higher up.
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I wonder since the hotel is closed because of the virus they will just shut down permanently and begin redevelopment as soon as this all blows over
Anyways i think a postmodern/art deco inspired tower would fit well here, being between GCS and the Chrysler Building
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That’s a good point — perfect opportunity to shut down for them.
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Developers are hoping for a 2026 delivery, and approval/ULURP certification by next year.
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If that’s the case, have they announced that the hotel won’t reopen? I assume that demo will take a year.
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Could depend on how ULURP goes. Big backlog due to the pandemic.
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If they want approval by next year, could that mean we will see a rendering soon?
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Some new news, TFC applied for review
RXR Realty, TF Cornerstone and MSD Partners moved forward with plans to demolish and redevelop the Grand Hyatt hotel at 109 East 42nd Street in Grand Central by making an application for the City Environmental Quality Review process on their parcel.
Initial reports indicated the development would span 2 million square feet and would have office space, retail space, and a smaller Grand Hyatt hotel. The new hotel will have 500 rooms and 10,000-square-feet of meeting space, substantially smaller than current hotel which has 1,298 rooms.
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From SSP
2,621,140 Square feet of space. Thats a HUGE building. Almost 1 million more sq. ft. than One Vanderbilt
2,108,820 sq. ft. of office
452,950 sq. ft. of hotel
16,000 sq. ft. public space
43,370 sq. ft. of retail
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Good lord! And based on the historic landmarks on either side, I think we can safely assume this will be no box, but instead either set or sloped back to preserve sightlines, the same way they did at One Vandy. Am I crazy to think this could have a 1700’ top floor?
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Hope they work Commodore into the name of the building!
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One case where set backs per code will make this a very tall tower. I think we may be looking at the 2nd tallest tower in the makings. Possibly 1st depending if they add a spire.
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Hi everybody I’m not really active on the forum but i often have a look to the different discussions. I’m a french highschool student so excuse my english potentially inexact. During quarantine I’ve spent a lot of time creating a vision of the future Grand Hyatt Tower based on my craziest dreams and expectations about the future building. I have this idea since a while and I succeeded to make it ( almost ) real. This building could be seen as an in between, between a pure concept and a plausible building. I really wanted to design it with a sharp / bladed shape because i think it could fit the skyline very well and extend the " needle field" of the 42st. Because it is located just next to the Chrysler Building, I’ve also made a crown that evoke the Art Deco crown of the Chrylser, even if I tried to apply this style to the whole façade of the building, but more discreetly.About the Building specs, it is virtually 1491ft / 454,5 meters high and it has 92 floors. Howether, it is still a concept, and I don’t want to seem pretentious, just want to share the dream of a french teenager in love with New York City and the American Dream.
If you happen to really like it and want to share it on a network like Pinterest or others, don’t forget to mention the tag I wrote down below the renders, it represents months of passionate work.
So here are the renders I’ve made, both in a 3D Model of Nyc an in New York Skyline Pictures.
Hope you’ll enjoy it ! 
#/media/File:OBP_-_Ext_-_42nd_East.jpg){kind=link}
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