I remember when Pan Am and the Chrysler Building used to be the most dominating around the area, but now that the big boys are here they look like little kids
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Hopefully they tear it down and build a modern supertall (megatall in my dreams) right there. Possibly the best, or second best transit location in the city (in terms of general areas. Like Penn station area, Grand Centrals area, etc. not individual lots.). If built taller than 175 (and I would assume as bulky, or bulkier) it would dominate views down park avenue and the skyline as a whole. Maybe its base could play into 175 as well?
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Sorry for being a little off-topic, but is it possible or likely that Pan Am can be the same way as the old 270 Park Avenue when it comes to demolition? Although I do like the building, it would be awesome to have another supertall/megatall on that site between 175 Park and One Vanderbilt, also forming a supertall cluster with the Chrysler Building and soon to be 343 Madison Avenue as well.
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Anything is possible but that building has monster floor space.
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I like the Pan Am Building. It’s a NY fixture. Also, I think that its shape is really nice. A new facade would be nice though.
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It also has a commanding presence when viewed from Park Avenue from either direction, and always will as long as it exists. I doubt it’s going to be demolished any time soon.
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I really dislike the PanAm/MetLife Building. It wiped out the wonderful views of GCT from the south and the Helmsley Building from the north by simply overwhelming both buildings. I understand that it has the enormous floor plates desired by many and that it was a development gold mine. But IMO it also is architecturally unattractive, even if it was sited on its own plot, a result that is emphasized by its enormous size. One of the most important vistas in the city up and down Park has been lost forever. Too bad.
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I don’t mind the facade. I think it just needs a clean up— new window panes, improvements to the ‘gap’ floors, crown lighting/removal or hiding of all the weird antennae and clutter
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Well we’ll see. As of now there are not even the slightest rumors of that site getting redeveloped, so it’s just a dream. Back to 175, they plan to start demolition in 2023. I’m thinking a year maybe? Then construction starts in 2024, and if everything goes to plan it should look mostly finished by 2028 (along with another crop of supertalls), and will be officially opened in 2030.
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A dream in the making.
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To me, PanAm/MetLife is like the Twin Towers–not very beautiful but a NYC icon anyway.
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I’ve come around on MetLife/PanAm’s architecture — I hated it with a passion for a long time — but walling off the Park Avenue view remains an egregious sin. There was a weird vision/proposal a while back that would have added a bunch of height to the building but split the tower addition into two, with a gigantic atrium between the volumes. I don’t think that’s a real proposal or particularly realistic… but it does make me wish that someday MetLife could be replaced with twin tower that frame the Helmsley Building and re-open the Park Ave view corridor.
Rose Rock canceled project in Tianjin at roughly 2300 in place of the UGLY MetLife building. By the way, it is all Art Deco! 
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Credit: Xing Lin on SSC
Start of construction at the end of 2024 the demolition should take 18 months would be possible.
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From Q4 2021:
Can’t wait for demo.
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Can’t wait for that ugly POS to be gone, and to start seeing 175 go up. Especially that sexy base.
I still wish 200 Park would get torn down as we could easily see a 2,000 ft building right there, and not a skinny one either. But there are far easier plots to redevelop currently so that’s not likely to happen.
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I would love a 2000 foot building there.
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Per NYguy:
Despite what people say about the view of the Chrysler being altered from some angles, this will be an iconic view…
This could also fit in the Chrysler Thread
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Reasons for buildings such as Grand Hyatt
NYguy:
What’s driving the wave of new office construction…
https://www.crainsnewyork.com/commer…et-left-behind
Manhattan offices face reckoning as older buildings get left behind
February 7, 2022
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The fortunes of Manhattan’s office market are coming down to old versus new.
Glassy skyscrapers that have popped up in recent years are luring companies seeking new space and preparing for the hybrid-work era, a sign of New York’s revival from the depths of the pandemic. Left behind are countless older buildings that haven’t been modernized in the past decade, presenting a costly problem for landlords.
The question for owners of those buildings is whether it’s worth pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into a full gut-renovation—a gamble at a time when office use is down in general, available space is piling up at a record rate and high-profile companies such as Deutsche Bank AG and HSBC Holdings Plc are shrinking their global footprints.
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In a city where roughly 90% of the office stock is more than 20 years old old, the disparities are stark. New skyscrapers, including those at the Hudson Yards mega-development and One Vanderbilt near Grand Central Terminal, have filled up quickly, attracting the world’s biggest finance and tech tenants. Meanwhile, older buildings that haven’t been overhauled in the past decade or so can barely attract interest, even with major rent discounts.
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“The market is telling us very clearly that the era of driving to the cheapest price on office space, regardless of its condition, is, for most companies, no longer an acceptable real estate strategy,” said Mary Ann Tighe, CEO of New York’s tri-state region for brokerage CBRE Group Inc.
Tenants are gravitating to the best-of-the-best trophy properties that are close to transit hubs and fitted with posh amenities including gyms, luxury restaurants and outdoor terraces. If workers are going to leave the comfort of their home offices, they want nice perks in exchange.
“The requirements for a building are so much higher coming out of the pandemic,” said Sarah Hawkins, East Region CEO at Hines, which is working with SL Green Realty Corp. on the redevelopment of One Madison.
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Older properties are competing with giant blocks of space that are being constructed in towers such as 2 Manhattan West in the Hudson Yards area, and Deutsche Bank’s former headquarters at 60 Wall St., a 1980s building that’s getting an overhaul costing at least $250 million. Numerous towers are also under development, which will only add to the immense supply.
The Financial District is particularly saturated with aging towers.
“Downtown is a whole other thing because there’s so many of these lower-quality buildings,” Colp-Haber said. “The buildings that are suffering are 1970s vintage, that have nothing different about it, no particular charm, fewer windows.”
While many buildings in the area have had more-minor updates, they haven’t had the type of overhaul that’s needed to lure tenants these days.
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Even if landlords are willing to spend on modernizing their older buildings, some properties still won’t be able to compete.
“It really boils down to basic elements of the building: ceiling heights, structure, location, window line—that all matters,” Hawkins said. “Even with a full repositioning, you can’t compete because of the bones in the building.”
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