New York lost the 2012 Olympics, but thecity's bid for the summer games spurred another, visionary venture: building upthe largest undeveloped parcel in Manhattan.
While London got the games, New York was left with the best opportunity fordevelopment remaining in town.
On Manhattan's West Side, the old Hudson rail storage yards are surrounded bypotholed roads, warehouses, low-rent brownstones, cheap delis and strip clubs.Crowds waiting for discount buses line 10th Avenue. And homeless New Yorkerscamp out in desolate lots strewn with garbage.
But the area, also home to the global headquarters of The Associated Press, hasseen progress in the seven years since New York lost its bid to host theOlympics.
On a hot summer day, passers-by catch a glimpse of a deep man-made hole in theground — the core of a subway line extension to the area from Times Square.More than a dozen residential towers have been built near the Hudson River,along with several hotels. And both residents and tourists are flocking to thehugely popular High Line, an elevated rail line transformed into a grassywalkway.
This October, developers of the ambitious Hudson Yards project expect to breakground on a skyscraper where the Olympic stadium could have been.
It's the first step in a $15 billion small city within a city planned for 26acres of land by the river, bounded by 10th and 12th avenues and West 30th and33rd streets.
Hudson Yards "is not just another development — it's part of a largereffort to create a physical infrastructure for a multi-decade expansion of NewYork City," says Lynne Sagalyn, professor of real estate at ColumbiaBusiness School.
Turning the isolated waterfront into Manhattan's next big business district hasbeen a dream of city leaders for years. The city rezoned a 60-block stretch ofthe West Side to accommodate 25 million square feet (2.32 million sq. meters)of office space expected to rise as midtown Manhattan runs out of room. MayorMichael Bloomberg envisions a development that could eventually change theskyline — "a historic project that will create jobs for generations tocome," he says.
The effort to bring this megaproject to life hasn't exactly been harmonious.
Years of bitter wrangling among politicians, business people and residentsfocused around a proposed football stadium for the Jets meant to help win thecity the Olympics. The stadium fell short of state approval; opponentsquestioned the benefit of publicly financing a structure with limited use andpossible traffic gridlock.
Then came various plans for Hudson Yards, which still has its virulentopponents.
Kathleen Treat, of the Hell's Kitchen Neighborhood Association named after anold adjacent area, calls Hudson Yards "Hong Kong on the Hudson,"referring to the densely populated Asian city with people living in tightlyclustered high-rises.
The plan that eventually took hold calls for completion about a dozen yearsfrom now, though even that is hardly guaranteed.
"The question is, are there tenants to anchor the project?" asksSagalyn.
"The demand has to be strong, while the market can change and thingshappen you can't anticipate," she says.
Other questions loom. The subway extension is at least two years away. The cityissued $3 billion in bonds to pay for it, and work has yet to begin on an$800,000 platform covering the rail tracks.
"To build these very large structures on top of the tracks is a hugechallenge," says architect Bill Pedersen, co-founder of the architecturalfirm Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates, which designed Hudson Yards' master plan."It's like dental work, threading through down below."
At 12 million square feet (1.11 million sq. meters), Hudson Yards is billed asNew York's most ambitious private construction since the 1930s, with thousandsof apartment units including affordable housing.
The project is getting help from the public. The city approved $106 million inproperty tax exemptions for the first office tower and retail areas. Anddevelopers are leasing air rights to the property from the MetropolitanTransportation Authority for 99 years, with purchase options — for $1 billionto be used for the state agency's other capital projects.
Hudson Yards' first building, set to open in 2015, is a $1.3 billion, 46-floortower, nearly half of it to be occupied by the Coach leather goodsmanufacturer. Project developer Stephen Ross hopes to announce other tenants byyear's end for the joint venture between Related Cos. — he's chairman and CEO —and the Oxford Properties Group.
The glass atrium of the first tower stands alongside the High Line, accordingto renderings obtained by The Associated Press.
A second tower is to be up by 2017 along with nine residential buildings, aretail complex, a five-star hotel and culinary offerings including privatedining services, open-air cafes and new eateries created by famed restaurateurDanny Meyer.
Ross told the AP that the architect for another high-rise along a central,tree-lined park is David Childs, who designed New York's tallest building, OneWorld Trade Center, to be occupied by 2014.
In the renderings, visitors stroll along new shops on a landscaped walkway bythe High Line with a view of the Hudson and the Manhattan skyline. Nearby,children play in a new schoolyard.
Plans also include a riverfront park, and a cultural center that's been dubbedThe Culture Shed, an exotic five-story structure with translucent, telescopingouter shells to accommodate art exhibitions, concerts, film screenings andother public events. The architect is Elizabeth Diller, with designer DavidRockwell.
Ross says he wants construction to be finished on half of the planned HudsonYards within a year of the towers' completion.
"The biggest obstacle to making this happen is, you have to create acritical mass; no one is going to want to live in a construction zone," hesays.
Supporters say Hudson Yards is an opportunity to create more high-tech space forNew York City.
While the recession has slowed the city's economy, with unemployment topping 10percent, the city's media, arts, fashion, technology and finance sectors havedriven the creation of more private-sector jobs than ever. The city has added181,000 jobs since the recession, nearly 41,000 more than it lost, according toa new report from state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli.
Bloomberg compares Hudson Yards to London's Canary Wharf financial center thatreplaced languishing river docks.
Likewise, New York is creating what Pedersen calls a new "center ofvitality that makes the city competitive with the rest of the world, which ison the move."