They will utilize every square foot available but that does not necessarily relate to the tallest tower possible. If a bank leases it, there may be a huge trading floor at the base, which consumes a lot of square feet. If a non-banking entity becomes the anchor tenant, there may be a huge, multi-story retail base, which consumes a lot of square feet.
I therefore expect a roughly 1,200’ tower with a huge base.
Tishman clearly has a tenant for the Spire. They would not give these pigs $30m to vacate if they did not.
I think that BIG is designing it.
PS: This article highlights the absurdity of NY’s obscene rent control laws and the greed o tenants .
New York Builders Paying Huge Buyouts to Tenants in Their Way
TODD HEISLER / THE NEW YORK TIMES
By MIREYA NAVARRO
DECEMBER 24, 2015
Tishman Speyer Properties, one of New York City’s most active real estate developers, had bought two parcels of land on the Far West Side of Manhattan to clear the way for a 2.8-million-square-foot office tower planned for Hudson Yards.
Standing in the way, though, were the occupants of two apartments on the site. So this year, the developer turned to a lubricant that can be counted on to ease New York City tenants out of their rent-regulated units — a buyout, in this case, for $25 million in total to three tenants.
In New York’s exceptionally lucrative real estate market, multimillion-dollar buyouts are becoming more common, lawyers who negotiate for tenants and property owners say…
Even if they don’t have a tenant lined up right now, it makes sense that they’d wanna get the site shovel-ready ASAP.
I don’t see why. It could take years to get a tenant. 15 Penn will get built but probably not for years. Why pay these guys $30m now when, like 15 Penn, it might lie fallow for years? This is a huge Tower which won’t start to rise until someone commits to at least 1m SF. I think that Chase will anchor this, and I would not be surprised if Milbank also takes space there.
Tishman already has a Chinese partner, but for a project of this magnitude, the more the merrier (assuming that the reference to Tishman relates to the HY tower)!
Ping An set to invest “billions” through new US real estate arm
Chinese insurance giant “absolutely” looking at New York market: Singer
January 07, 2016 03:20PM
By Rey Mashayekhi and Katherine Clarke
Having ramped up its investment in global real estate markets over the past two years, Chinese insurance giant Ping An is set to invest “billions of dollars” in U.S. real estate over the next several years – with New York City set firmly in its sights.
PARE U.S., Ping An’s U.S. real estate investment arm, officially launched late last year with Rick Singer, former head of global real estate at Salomon Brothers, as its chief executive. The new venture will handle “all of the [real estate] investing for Ping An in the U.S. going forward,” Singer told The Real Deal.
“The purpose is to consolidate the decision-making and process of deal flow to a local basis, so that Ping An can be much more active in investing in the U.S.,” Singer said of the PARE U.S., which aims to differentiate itself from other Chinese forays into the U.S. real estate market through the “benefit of local expertise.”
The firm will not only focus on development projects but other forms of real estate investment, such as structured debt deals, asset portfolios and even entity-level acquisitions. It aims to invest “billions of dollars [in the U.S.] over the next two to four years,” Singer said. “To move the needle with Ping An, it takes that.”
Ping An’s U.S. real estate presence thus far has been outside of the New York market, having partnered, alongside fellow Chinese insurance giant China Life, with Tishman Speyer for a stake in the developer’s $500 million Pier 4 waterfront development in Boston.
But Singer said the new venture is “absolutely” looking at New York as part of its strategy to invest in core urban areas – citing the city as “the biggest and most important” of those core markets. PARE U.S. is actively in “discussions with many of the large developers in New York,” he said, citing its “ongoing relationship with Tishman Speyer,” as well as conversations with the likes of Silverstein Properties.
“In building up this business, our focus is very much to do things off-market and quietly, based on relationships,” Singer noted. “To do it in a way where we’re very much like a U.S. investor, as opposed to a foreign investor.”
Ping An, China’s second-largest insurer with more than $700 billion in total assets under management, has made waves with the ventures into global real estate markets in recent years, having acquired two London office properties in deals valued at nearly $900 million.
It purchased the iconic, Richard Rogers-designed Lloyd’s of London building for $390 million in July 2013, and followed that with the acquisition of the Norman Foster-designed Tower Place for around $490 million last January.
With PARE U.S., however, the company looks set to follow Chinese insurance giants like Anbang Insurance Group and Fosun International in betting on U.S. real estate – and staking its claim in New York, as well.
“It’s a very smart move for Ping An to venture with local U.S. expertise in Rick Singer,” Eastdil Secured senior managing director Doug Harmon told The Real Deal. “I think it will for sure help them navigate the markets in a swifter, smarter fashion.”
This is just the beginning too. China turmoil means a lot of capital flows from there to here. They all flock to places where appreciation and big returns occur. SF, Los Angeles, NYC, DC, Boston… and so on.
President Xi’s targeting wealthy people also prompts capital flight.
Excuse my ignorance, but why did I think McDonalds was holding this up? Is the McDonald’s site an entirely different building, or does that affect the Hudson Spire as well?
That site is for 50 Hudson Yards which is now being demolished.
This would be nice!
Good news! Would be happy if they decide on either the Spire or 50 HY site.
And I’d like to see big’s 2 WTC design rise here!
I always thought BIG’s design for 2 WTC was a better fit for the Hudson Yards district as opposed to the WTC site. Hell, the placeholder for 50 Hudson Yards even kinda resembled it.
Do we actually know who designed that staircase-y placeholder? Part of me wonders if it might have been mocked up by BIG and then re-jiggered for the 2WTC commission.
I hated it for the World Trade site, but would actually quite like the cantilevered version to wind up at 50 HY – if oriented properly, the leaning upper volume would appear to “hook” around the top floors of 30 HY as they leaned the opposite way.
I loved BIG’s design
I hope that it’s built at the HY.
I called quite some time ago that BIG would design this.
1,006’. It looks good. I’d like to see the side profile. It steps back like 2 WTC.
Maybe NewsCorp will anchor it. JPMC and BlackRock also are candidates.
Finally we have some renderings! I like it. Wish it were taller, but the design is on point.
You are the man, Robert!
Robert, you must be some sort of prophet! Also, I really like this design. I think BIG has gotten better at designing supertalls and if this was their design for 2 WTC, I don’t think many people would have an issue with that.
I agree, CityGuy.
I’d like to see more renderings. The up close one (below) looks dramatic.
This has setbacks like 2 WTC. I’m curious to see how many it has. (As I recall, 2 WTC had seven.)
Anyway, this truly seals the death of BIG’s 2 WTC. The towers are too similar.
Calling Mr. Murdoch…! (Is the fact that this story broke in the WSJ, NewsCorp’s flagship newspaper, a mere coincidence? The NYT didn’t get this story!)
