12 Likes
Indeed it is. 
6 Likes
^^ From Crain’s article.
Thanks to soaring prices for steel and other commodities, the cost of a Midtown tower has grown to $2,000 per square foot, Goldfarb said. That’s 66% more than JPMorgan paid for its tower nearing completion at 270 Park Ave.
“Even to the big boys, $2,000 a foot is a big number,” Goldfarb said.
Thomas, who teamed up with Norway’s $1.7 trillion sovereign wealth fund to develop 343 Madison, insisted on a recent conference call that work will begin this year.
BXP officials have said rents of $225 per square foot will be needed for the math to work at 343 Madison, a price that only a handful of floors in Manhattan command. Real estate experts say 343 Madison, which is being marketed as a “zero carbon premier workplace” could achieve those rents thanks to its location, just a five-minute walk from the Grand Central clock. Thomas said BXP has made lease proposals to seven potential anchor tenants and another 10 are “considering” the building.
For now, however, the only work underway is a new entrance for the Long Island Rail Road.
Man, that LIRR entrance already looks silly on the block all by itself.
6 Likes
How is construction going?
1 Like
Per NYguy on SSP:
BXP plans to develop $2B Midtown office tower with or without an anchor.
The developer BXP is prepared to start on a new tower at 343 Madison Ave. without a committed anchor tenant in what would amount to a massive bet that demand for high-end Manhattan office buildings will remain strong.
The publicly traded Boston-based real estate investment trust, which also owns the General Motors Building, must notify the MTA next month whether it plans to go ahead with long-simmering plans to build a 46-story, 1 million square-foot office tower next to Grand Central Terminal.Normally towers of this size rise up only after about half the space is pre-leased. But BXP officials indicated at a dinner Monday with institutional investors that they’re poised to go ahead without such commitments in hand, according to the event’s host. The tower’s estimated cost is $2 billion.
That such a speculative project is even possible speaks to a growing belief that New Yorkers will continue returning to offices, especially if the space is a short walk from Grand Central Terminal. And even if no prospective tenant is quite ready to sign on the dotted line at 343 Madison, demand for space near the commuter hub is so strong that investors have absolutely no doubt that the tower would fill quickly.
“It’s been a fundamental shift in mood,” said Joshua Stein, a top Manhattan real estate lawyer.
BXP, for its part, “certainly” won’t have a lease finalized by the MTA’s July deadline, said Steve Sakwa, an Evercore ISI real estate analyst who hosted Monday’s dinner with BXP executives. Even so, he wrote in a client report about the meeting, “our sense is that the company will move forward with this project on a ‘spec’ basis.”
Work has begun on the site to carve out escalators that would connect the building to Grand Central. If BXP backs out, those construction costs would be reimbursed by the MTA, which is counting on collecting rent by leasing the land. BXP’s 45% partner in the project is Norway’s $1.7 trillion sovereign wealth fund, the world’s largest.
“It would take five years to develop this tower,” Piper Sandler analyst Alexander Goldfarb said. “But it is literally the best site in Manhattan.”
12 Likes
I was onsite last month and I believe we were told that rebar had reached above grade in late April. I ofcourse can’t post any pictures I took though.
when will the construction of the tower begin?
1 Like