no visible progress from the street
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This building is lame, but it will fill with tenants very quickly.
This is basically the new Comcast Tower in Philly without the spire.
It will be lost in a majestic sea of supertalls as soon as it’s completed.
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#13 on the proposed list.
Rather plain and understated. Filler. Will be surrounded by gigantic beautiful buildings. But there’s nothing really wrong with that. The ESA connection and underground mezzanine will boost this tower massively for tenants.
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I swear to god, if this doesn’t change back.
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I’m ok with the height reduction if they improve the design. I think that the 1,000’ proposal was mediocre.
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The design was perfectly fine. And I’m not okay with the height reduction
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sounds like they used a pre-FAR bonus calculation for the filing. This would be multiple floors shorter than the proposal that was being presented to the city the past year. That would make no sense.
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Oh I see. So as long as they just get the FAR bonuses it’ll be good. Just build that underground transit upgrades, and etc.
Project Description
The Applicants are seeking to construct a 1,050-foot-tall commercial building with a total floor
area of 925,630 square feet and a total zoned floor area of 753,120 square feet (or 30.0 FAR).
The base of the building would be 321 feet, with a setback on all frontages and a cantilever over
the utility building on Lot 25. The building’s lobby as well as ground floor retail spaces would
Nos. C210369ZSM and C210370ZSM – 343 Madison Avenue
Page 3 of 9
front Madison Avenue, while the proposed East Side Access transit entrance will be located at
the corner of Madison Avenue and East 45th Street.
On-site transit improvements, pursuant to ZR § 81-633, would consist of the following:
• Three new 40-inch wide escalators connecting the corner entry at street level to the East
Side Access concourse level;
• A new 6-foot wide stair adjacent to the new escalators;
• A new elevator connecting the corner entry at street level to the East Side Access
concourse level, in full compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act;
• A new MTA back-of-house space beneath the Project Site accessible by the new elevator;
and
• A new double-height, 2,372-square-foot entrance area at the northwest corner of the
Project Site.
Off-site transit improvements, pursuant to ZR § 81-633, would consist of the following:
• Widening two platform stairs at the east end of the Flushing Line platform at Grand
Central Terminal by approximately four feet and nine inches;
• Widening two sets of stairs that connect the uptown Lexington Line platform to an
existing passageway providing access to the existing Flushing Line platform stairs by
approximately one foot and three inches each; and
• Constructing a new extension of the existing Flushing Line transfer passageway, as well
as two new 5-foot-wide stairs and a 10-foot, 8-inch wide stair connecting the passageway
extension and the Flushing Line platform
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Per SSP diagrams this will only be 20th tallest in the city, right behind The Brooklyn Tower. (Though the list is missing a few proposals, namely 80 South) So freaking awesome.
Exciting times, and we’re just getting started on proposals for Midtown East
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From the article:
It’s been a long road, but Boston Properties is one step closer to building its big office tower on the former site of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s headquarters.
The developer filed plans Friday for a 982,000-square-foot office building at 343 Madison Avenue, Crain’s reported. The building is slated to stand 780 feet tall, shorter than the developer’s original plans for a 1,050-foot-tall property.
The ground floor will have retail space, while the rest of the Kohn Pedersen Fox-designed building will have office and mechanical space. Construction is expected to wrap up by 2026.
Last year, Boston Properties filed a land use application for the Midtown site, wanting to replace the former MTA HQ site and three adjacent lots with a supertall tower. The developer initially proposed a 925,000-square-foot building, so while it has shrunk in height, it has grown in square footage.
Earlier in 2021, Boston Properties filed applications to demolish the three buildings at the development site, including the 15-story building that once housed the MTA’s headquarters.
The MTA reportedly bought 347 Madison Avenue for $11.9 million in 1979 and the adjacent sites for $12.25 million and $23.75 million, respectively, in 1991. In 2013, the agency began seeking bids to demolish and rebuild the site. The MTA moved to 2 Broadway, but kept paying roughly $4 million to maintain its former building.
Boston Properties was chosen as the winning bidder in 2016, but the city objected over questions on the developer’s share of owed property taxes. After the pandemic brought a financial strain onto the city and the MTA, the two sides reached an agreement to move forward.
It’s been projected the site could generate upwards of $1 billion in revenue for the MTA over a 99-year ground lease. Proceeds from the lease would benefit capital improvements, which will include widening stairs at several subway sections in Grand Central, as well as extending the passageway for the 7 train.
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^Thanks! Bummer on the height chop though, 270 feet is relatively significant.
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I find it very strange that it has shrunken in height but gotten larger in area (if the building did indeed get a decrease in height), when it didn’t really have anywhere to go in terms of footprint.
they are constrained with what they can build here because of the ventilation structure. And the Yale Club is landmarked. They can’t just magically increase the square footage like that and decrease the height of the building. Nothing is making sense here.
My only thought as to how this new height figure makes sense is if they redesigned the building into a glass box with no setbacks. which would be dreadfully boring.
from one of the board meetings, they’re forced to cantilever over the structure up against the landmarked building.
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All your thoughts are plausible, but even if it were just made into a simple box, it would still have to have a setback for the street wall requirement, but I don’t know if they would even be able to make up that much square footage and more from shaving 270 ft off by making it a simple box.
It’s probably just TheRealDeal getting their numbers mixed up.
They’re using the height calculated from the Pre Bonus FAR, instead of the final sqft numbers.
Idk. Maybe that’s the case.
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That’s possible, but the filing and associated documents list the 780’ figure with all the other appropriate figures, the correct FAR, the correct ZSF, the correct lot footprint. It could be a mistake, but that’s an awkward/odd mistake to make.
The sqft figures mentioned in the article are confusing because they are indicative of the GSF and not the ZSF, which means that if 780’ is not the real height, then the building gained about 3 floors worth of floor space to the original design that is 932’ tall.
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So TKDV, do you think that the roughly 800’ height is correct? I’d be happy with that if the design is better. I think that the 1,000’ design is mediocre.