NEW YORK | Port Authority Bus Terminal Renovation/Replacement

Here’s a good overview per NYguy on SSP:

An overview of the footprint on GoogleEarth…

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Though I don’t know the heights, I added the masses to my partial model of Midtown.
For the towers respective to their sites I made each one 1200’, 775’, 900’ & 1200’.


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Well even if those aren’t the final numbers, that’s still pretty insane.

If those 2 were both 1,200 ft, NYC would have 4 buildings at 1,200 ft. (Also NYC would have the tallest twins in the western hemisphere again)

PABT Towers
PENN 15
Bank of America Tower
(Rip Tower Verre)

The only other city on the continent with 2 or more buildings over 1,200 ft is Chicago. (Now that I’m thinking about it, the only other city with ANY building 1,200 ft or higher is Chicago. Though that will change if Monterrey builds their big proposal)

What’s even crazier is they’d be tied for 14th place, with 13 others taller than them.
Nuts man, nuts.

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Great job! Its massive presence stands out greatly based on the 2nd picture :slight_smile:

Indeed it is nuts! And what’s even more insane is the potential huge presence of the new towers surrounding Penn Station :smiley:

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Truly. Ever since 2014 NYC has been in a boom unparalleled. And not just Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, and Jersey City have shared it too, even if it isn’t to the same extent.

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Indeed, as if they form one massive megacity!

Speaking of Manhattan, I bet it’ll be a whole different city/area if the PABT development connects with Hudson Yards & Manhattan West, and the Penn Station towers. :slight_smile:

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And Newark……………just kidding. Give Newark 10 years.

@mcart May I ask which twins you are referring to?

@NewYorkCity76 Thank you, I’m certain when final figures are released they may stand out more through form and possibly height. The Empire Station Complex towers would fill in the area immediately to the right of the Site 1 tower in the 2nd picture.

But as it relates to your later comment, this development “will” intersect with the Hudson Yards special district, it just won’t interact with Manhattan West nor the ESC. The area between 9th & 10th Ave and 34th & 39th St (besides development to cover/span over the winding tunnels and roads that lead to the Lincoln Tunnel with parks) is not planned to have any major towers developed, just little low/midrise developments sprinkled here and there because that is all zoning allows for in that area. So the kind of barren view between the 2 middle towers of the PABT development with Manhattan West dead center will essentially remain as such on my 2nd render.

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Well the massings if both are at 1,200 ft are both twins basically. Obviously again it’s just the massings and the heights aren’t set, blah blah blah. Just making an observation.

Even with the same height and design architect at this stage, they could still be very far from twins design-wise. Their differing locations and footprint shape will probably be met with two very different looking buildings, heights notwithstanding.

Yes, I know. I was just talking about the massings, as that’s all we can talk about right now.

In fact I specifically referenced this.

I know these aren’t representative of the final towers.

I know, I’m just saying it’s a stretch to specifically refer to the two ~1200’ lots as twins even at this stage-- even the massings are clearly distinct, catering to differently sized footprints and setback requirements. The rest of your commentary around the possible heights makes sense.

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Okay then I won’t. It was an off the top of my head side comment anyways.

I do hope that twin-towered (or more) designs come back more into fashion, but the PABT probably isn’t a good fit given that the two tallest lots are at opposite ends of the block. I love KPF’s 15 & 30HY and SOM’s 1 & 2MW for their elegant fraternal twin designs.

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Hmm maybe. I wonder if those 2 Bridges 700 fters are twins? I don’t remember their design exactly bu they looked similar

Even if now my Sky High Topic and the PABT here are similar then it has only the reason that I plan my concept here.

Okay, even though I plan for Site 4 to be the Sky High Tower with a height of around 1200 feet, and Site 3 to be 900 feet.

But my question about Site 1 and 2 is a different one and that is:

The old McGraw-Hill Building is in this vicinity. How might this impact Site 1, and specifically to allow this to be narrower and possibly taller?

https://www.emporis.de/buildings/map#c=40.757526,-73.991643&z=18&b=115345&t=show

And one more thing: Is it likely that only 2 very tall buildings (over 1900 feet) can be built on the entire site?

I’m already planning the four individual towers, but …

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Ah, now that’s interesting. I kinda wish that the area between 9th & 10th Avenue and 34th & 39th street are filled with high rise towers/skyscrapers to fill in the gap. But now that you mention it, I think I meant to say that it’ll be like a whole new city since this enormous project will form a somewhat U-shape connecting this to Hudson Yards to Manhattan West and to the ESC. :slightly_smiling_face:

@ThreeWentDown @mcart

Yeah, it is early to determine the exact designs, but I’ll be surprised if the twins are actually implemented as final design, and as you mentioned before MCart, that anything could change anytime :slightly_smiling_face:

I think @TKDV has more knowledge of this site than me, but considering there’s no height limit I think it’s possible to have a supertall taller than One WTC, or even a megatall.

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Any building can be narrower/taller or wider/shorter, but that is based on zoning code requirements, an existing building outside of the development boundary wouldn’t have any affect on a proposed building inside the boundary. For commercial buildings in NY you are trying to capitalize on the area of each floor, Site 1 definitely won’t be any slimmer because of this. As for the height, even if it was zoned for 4 million sqft, it would need a lot of vanity height to reach 1900’.

The chances of only 2 giant towers being built instead of the planned 4 is highly unlikely, practically none. The current layout of the towers coordinates with the footprint of the low-lying terminal buildings to not interupt service paths/roads/ramps and corridors within the terminal, changing the footprints of the building to be larger would result in interupting these items.

@mcart I understand it was just a thought, but I would abandon the idea of twins, as it’s very unlikely, similar to what ThreeWentDown mentioned, even though they are just massings they are still representative of factors as it relates to calculating building proportions, Tower 1 and 4 are very different. The idea of fraternal twins is interesting and I like it, but not twins in that they would be identical.

@NewYorkCity76 Thanks for expanding on that, even if that particular area wont be getting any tall developments, its getting some much needed greenspace!

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