Update on Hudson Yards and the Far West 30′s
Hudson Yards, a not yet official neighborhood which encompasses parts of the northern end of Chelsea and the southern end of Hell’s Kitchen, is in the news again. Residents of Manhattan rental apartments in that still kind of nebulous neighborhood of the far west-30s are about to get a lot more company, it seems.
I know: I’ve written about this increasingly booming Manhattan neighborhood before. For example, I wrote when news of the extension of the 7-train line came through, but some New York City communities grow in spectacular spurts, and this area between 30th and 42nd Street, and 9th and 12th Avenues, has as much or more momentum right now than any other neighborhood in town.
Recently there were several items of good news for development and construction fans, including a record-setting $20 million gift from the Diller-von Furstenberg Family Foundation that seems to seal the deal on the completion of the third and final phase of the great High Line.
For example, the gigantic Hudson Yards project, spearheaded by Related Companies, envisioned as a plaza of sorts built on top of the West Side Yard and incorporating between 13 and 16 skyscrapers, for use as offices, retail space, and thousands of residential units, including plenty of new Manhattan rental apartments. Mayor Bloomberg has been promoting this part of town as the “one last frontier” of undeveloped real estate in Manhattan, and believes it could be a new Midtown West in it’s own right.
According to some estimates, this project alone could provide up to 26 million square feet of new office space, 20,000 units of new housing, and two million square feet of retail space, a staggering set of numbers that are almost enough to qualify the Hudson Yards project as a new neighborhood all on its own.
Of course, the implications of this enormous influx of people to the community, both residents and workers, are challenging to say the least (to name just one: where are all the kids going to go to school?) but one thing’s certain: if the Hudson Yards project does indeed start construction soon, and in earnest, Hell’s Kitchen and Chelsea rental apartment residents will have to rethink their neighborhood.
But the most exciting news for current residents of the area, or for those of you looking to move into this neighborhood in the making: it looks like the third and final phase of the hugely successful High Line park will, in fact, be built, thanks in large measure to a jaw-dropping $20 million gift from the Diller-von Furstenberg Family Foundation, the philanthropic organization of that NYC super-couple, media mogul Barry Diller and fashion designer Diane von Furstenberg.
The third phase of the High Line runs from 30th Street and 10th Avenue (the current northern terminus) over to 12th Avenue, and then up to 35th Street… right alongside where the Hudson Yards project is envisioned. The $20 million gift is the largest ever made to any city park, and puts the Friends of the High Line over the halfway mark of the $150 million needed to complete the final phase. This is all excellent news for everyone, of course, but especially for residents considering the Hudson Yards area as a place to live.
Finally, further down near the other end of the High Line on 19th Street, HFZ Capital announced that it will begin construction on a mixed-use, two-towered complex that will straddle the park–one tower to the east, one to the west–and will contain some 90,000 square feet of residential space soaring on either side of the High Line, and an additional 10,000 square feet of retail space on the street level below.
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