NEW YORK | City plans BIG rezoning of Midtown

[Mr Man]

Originally Posted by mhays

Urban renewal doesn't seem very relevant...

On second thought, it was a very inappropriate comparison. Fair enough... I got carried away My bad.

[NOPA]

Wow this is a great idea! Is this plan something similar to what they did in the meatpacking district, which was allow air rights to be sold/transferred anywhere in the zone rather than adjacent lots?

I think people need to keep in mind the costs of NOT allowing redevelopment. Yes everybody loves beautiful and historic buildings. But when supply cannot keep up with demand, prices rise. New York already has a lot of restrictions on building/developing otherwise it wouldn't be so expensive. Licenses, permits, approvals, safety regulations, etc all add to the price tag of building, not to mention restrictions such as zoning, heigth, etc.

Also, if you don't allow the growth to happen in Midtown, where will it go? Other parts of The City? Maybe, but just as likely it would be other cities (say somewhere in Texas) that are much cheaper, less dense, and create more sprawl. Nobody is talking about tearing down Grand Central here. As mentioned New York has a pretty robust landmark process and the A-listers have already been landmarked.

Speaking of which, does anybody know if the Metlife Building (formerly Pan Am) is landmarked? I couldn't find out if it was. Its one of my favorite NY skyscrapers; very iconic and beautiful.

[NYguy]

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/bloo...sEnabled=false

Bloomberg is fast-tracking a plan to knock down obsolete buildings near Grand Central
Idea is to raze smaller structures to make way for modern office towers





By Reuven Blau
April 16, 2012

RACING TO put his stamp on midtown before his third term expires, Mayor Bloomberg’s administration is fast-tracking a plan to transform the zoning near Grand Central Terminal. The objective is to allow for developers to knock down aging, too-small-for-the-big-time buildings and construct ultramodern towers — the bigger, the better.

“This is something that Bloomberg would like to finish before leaving office,” said a leading business official who was told about the plan but asked not to be identified because its specifics have yet to be formally proposed. “This would be a linchpin of his legacy.”

The existing rezoning, enacted in 1961, does not set a height maximum for buildings, but they generally top out anywhere from 20 to 50 stories, with a few exceptions, including the Chrysler Building, which has 77 floors. Under the proposal, developers would likely have the ability to go as high as the Chrysler Building if they have the real estate for a large base. “That would increase the average building size by 20% to 30%,” one city zoning expert said, also requesting anonymity.

City officials and real estate insiders say the area — known in planning circles as the “Midtown core” — sorely needs updating. The average age of each office building is 68 years, multiple developers who have been briefed by the city said. Buildings in London’s downtown are slightly younger, having been built about 60 years ago, they said, but there is no comparison with Hong Kong, 20 years; and Shanghai, 10 years.

“In order for the city to be competitive globally, we need a lot more new construction,” said Robert Knakal, chairman of Massey Knakal Realty Services. “If you look at the skyline of New York compared to some other cities, you see we are not what we once were.”

[scalziand]

Here's an idea: offer a density bonus for doing facadectomies for prewar buildings. That way the developers have a clearly defined incentive to preserve the existing facades, rather than having to be negotiated for each individual project. It would be similar to existing bonuses given for things like plazas and arcades.

[reencharles]

It would be nice to have something like this in this area (with this rezoning).

The Amazing Spider Man


Avengers


Images taken from the trailer... I saw those scenes, and the first thing I thought was that it would be nice to have something like that in the city.

[Rico Rommheim]

May I have an example of those "obsolete buildings" planned to be torn down?

[miketoronto]

While I agree allowing some new buildings is fine. I also have to question why there is no incentives for retrofitting older buildings?

-There is no reason older buildings can not be retrofitted. Cities around the world do this, and NYC also has them.
I am sure buildings like Chrysler have been retrofitted.

-I agree, some generic buildings can go. But the landmark buildings need to be protected.

-If space is such a big deal, why have no taller buildings been built? If there is all this demand to have to build in midtown, then why no 110 story office towers like before? Why have all the newer office buildings even in Midtown only been has high as around the 50 story mark? Again, if there is demand and the need to provide more office space, then why no super tall buildings?

-While keeping class A space is important, there is also a need to have office space for all types of business. Some business needs class b space, and while I understand Midtown is the primary CBD. The need of less classy office tenants should be taken into account.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by miketoronto

-If space is such a big deal, why have no taller buildings been built? If there is all this demand to have to build in midtown, then why no 110 story office towers like before?

Because the current zoning doesn't allow such buildings.

NYC has super-restrictive zoning, even in the Midtown core around Grand Central. The Chrysler building wouldn't be allowed under current zoning. Hell, many of the big 60's-era boxes wouldn't be allowed under current zoning.

In many parts of Midtown East, you can't build bigger buildings than those that already exist, which is why so many older structures have received facade replacements in recent years.

You can't build bigger buildings, so you take the old building and gut-renovate with a modern facade. This is all thanks to East Side downzoning by crazy NIMBYs during the 1980's.

Hopefully, the rezoning will restore some degree of sanity to the zoning, and developers can build big again.

[NYguy]

Originally Posted by Crawford

Because the current zoning doesn't allow such buildings.

NYC has super-restrictive zoning, even in the Midtown core around Grand Central. The Chrysler building wouldn't be allowed under current zoning. Hell, many of the big 60's-era boxes wouldn't be allowed under current zoning.

That's right, that's the purpose of the rezoning, to pave the way for BIGGER buildings and the type needed in the Manhattan market of today, not 50 years ago.

[NYguy]

http://www.commercialobserver.com/20...own-manhattan/

More Density For Midtown Manhattan?
Zoning changes could ensure the district’s global competitiveness for decades to come. So what’s the holdup?


By Robert Knakal 4/17

Over the past several years, the City Planning Commission has done an excellent job of rezoning dozens of areas within the city. These balanced rezonings have consisted of up-zonings and down-zonings. The up-zonings have occurred around transportation hubs to create higher density development within walking distance to major public transportation systems. Simultaneously, other areas were down-zoned to prevent large-scale development from occurring in areas where people would need to commute by car, causing congestion in those neighborhoods. This planning has been sound and the city should be applauded for these pragmatic changes.

However, much of the legislation that has been proposed by community boards and the City Council will serve to thwart development and encourage more preservation. It is clear that keeping certain aspects of the city intact is admirable but when overreaching occurs, it exerts downward pressure on economic development. This has been done through the creation of an extraordinary number of historic districts and landmark districts and additional hurdles preventing developers from bringing parcels to their highest and best use.

Two major projects, which will have a dramatically positive impact on the city, are the development of the Hudson Yards and the World Trade Center. These two developments will bring much needed new office and residential stock to the marketplace along with substantial retail components. However, in Midtown Manhattan, the stock of buildings, particularly of office buildings, is decades old. Midtown Manhattan is one of the few places in the country where one can walk down the street and point to an office building constructed in the 1980s and refer to it as a “new building.” In most cities around the country, the 1980s-vintage office building is the “old building” that companies are moving out of.

In Midtown, there are many buildings that are 60, 70 or even 80 years old and there is an overwhelming demand for new office space. If you compare the changes over the past 30 to 40 years in the skyline of Midtown with those of other major world markets, we see that New York is not advancing at the rate major cities around the globe are, which could result in our losing our competitive advantage over the long-term.

To create new development, the city has the ability to provide incentives, at absolutely no cost, through increasing floor-to-area-ratios (FARs) for parcels in Midtown Manhattan.....The reason that many obsolete buildings in Midtown are not demolished to make way for new developments is that the cost of existing buildings is very high and the extent to which you can replace an existing 100,000-square-foot building with another 100,000-square-foot building does not create economic feasibility for a developer. If, however, the FAR on that parcel is increased such that 250,000 square feet could replace the 100,000 square foot building, it would create incentives through economic viability for these antiquated buildings to be demolished to make way for modern structures. The city is considering a plan to increase FARs substantially in Midtown East, which would be an appropriate counterpoint to the many (too many) historic districts that have been created and that have been proposed. It is hoped that this proposal will get serious consideration as it would allow the city to remain competitive on a global basis.

[M II A II R II K]

And to better maintain that competitiveness they should add more rapid transit options too.

[ThisSideofSteinway]

Originally Posted by Rico Rommheim

May I have an example of those "obsolete buildings" planned to be torn down?

285 Madison, my old office, will probably be among the first to go. As its main (and as far as I know, still the sole) occupant is heading over to Columbus Circle, it'll be ripe for demolition.

[Austinlee]

Good; New York needs more space as evidenced by the very high costs of office & residential space.

[NYguy]

http://observer.com/2012/06/is-midto...taller-towers/

Is Midtown Too Small? City Planning Outlines Ideas for Adding (Much) Taller Towers]



By Matt Chaban 6/07/12

How many New Yorkers, after a long day of work, are headed home, a little beaten down, look up and think to themselves, “You know what Midtown needs? Bigger buildings.” Probably not very many. But this is a question the Department of City Planning and the Bloomberg administration are very seriously considering as they work on rezoning a huge swath of Midtown East, the vaguest details of which were revealed to the land use committees of Community Boards 5 and 6 last night.

Like it has with so much of the city, from the Far West Side to the Brooklyn waterfront to downtown Jamaica, Queens, the administration wants to revise a set of zoning principals first laid out in 1961, and changed little since. Meanwhile the world has, as has the city, and in order to stay competitive with places like London, Shanghai and Abu Dhabi, Midtown, where 80 percent of buildings are 50 years old or older, must modernize. “We need to think of the global context,” said Edith Hsu-Chen, director of the department’s Manhattan office.

Details were scant, but the area the department is looking at was outlined, an 85-block swath running from 40th Street to 57th Street, between Fifth Avenue and Third Avenue, except for a section of Second Avenue in the East 40s. This brackets a section of the neighborhood the department is especially interested in, roughly 20 blocks surrounding Grand Central Terminal. The one other detail to emerge was an interest in improving Park Avenue, ensuring its place as the city’s premier business address.

To put things in perspective, this roughly 250 acre rezoning would be almost 10 times as large as Hudson Yards, and according to one city planning source could increase development rights in the area by as much as 50 percent, depending on what set of recommendations the department embraces. As Real Estate Board president Steven Spinola explained a few weeks ago during a different discussion on the future of Midtown, “right now, our buildings top out around 50 stories. Why shouldn’t they top out around 80 stories? They do in a lot of other great cities.”

Including in Hudson Yards, and even exceed that height at the slowly redeveloping World Trade Center. And this was perhaps the greatest concern for community board members. “The public is spending buildings of dollars at Hudson Yards and ground zero, and for good reason,” said Raju Mann, a member of Community Board 5. “We haven’t even seen what these projects have produced yet, so how can we be sure what’s appropriate for Midtown East?”

Such ambitions also had community board members worried, as they felt the plan is moving too quickly given its size and scope. The department plans on releasing a more concrete vision in July, which it will study and modify throughout the fall before submitting it for public review in the first quarter of 2013. “For something so big, and so important, that seems awfully fast,” said Kate McDonough, chair of board 5′s Land Use Committee. The implication was that this was one last land grab by developers before the Bloomberg administration leaves office at the end of next year.

[jd3189]

Originally Posted by NYguy

Is Midtown Too Small? City Planning Outlines Ideas for Adding (Much) Taller Towers]

Midtown small? It's the largest CBD is this country and quite possibly the world.

[NYguy]

Originally Posted by jd3189

Midtown small? It's the largest CBD is this country and quite possibly the world.

Much of it was built before current zoning went into place. Buildings wouldn't be able to be built as large now, so from the City's standpoint, there is no incentive to build new skyscrapers there. Under the rezoning plan, building sizes would be increased, thus returning the east side to the natural order of growth.



http://observer.com/2012/06/weve-bee...building-them/

Never Mind Midtown, We’ve Been Arguing About Skyscrapers for As Long As We’ve Been Building Them]


Might Midtown, 1935. (Ephemeral New York)

By Matt Chaban 6/08

What perfect timing our good friend Christopher Gray has. No sooner has the city begun debating in earnest the merits of whether or not Midtown East should be upzoned to allow for ever bigger skyscrapers than The Times’ Streetscapist reminds us that such debates, always fervent, are as old as the skyscrapers themselves, stretching back a century and a half.

These were buildings no taller than the Dakota, but in 1885 The New York Times urged restrictive legislation and darkly predicted that “if the streets were lined with eight-story buildings, half of the occupants would be deprived of sunlight, and their children would be etiolated like plants grown in a cellar.” You can tell it’s serious when The Times brings the kids into it. As tall buildings grew in numbers, architects found themselves in a difficult position. In 1894 the prominent architect George B. Post denounced the skyscraper, as it was now freely called, as an “outrage.” On the other hand the commission he received from his $2 million, 10-story New York World Building, on Park Row — well, that put outrage in a certain perspective.

In 1897 The Record and Guide, alarmed by a proposal for a building 2,000 feet high, protested that New York was open “to attack from the audacious real estate owner” who cared nothing about robbing light from the neighbors, adding, “All that is needed is a barbarian with sufficient money and lunacy.” The Chamber of Commerce, equally alarmed, supported legislation to severely restrict skyscrapers.

No doubt The Times’ editorial board, along with its “longhair architectural critic,” will be weighing in on the latest proposal at some point, with a mix of economic understanding and preservationist alarm. But as Mr. Gray points out “no children had grown into mushrooms” as a result of these 10- and 20-story towers. The same has been the case with those three times as large, so it stands to reason rising to five times the height, 1,200 feet tall or more, should not be The End of Man.

But nor should such benefits be given over to developers for free, or so argues skeptics of the project. It will be the Bloomberg administration’s job to ensure this is a city that will be better off for all, not just some.

[NYguy]

Quote from a 4-page article on the rezoning...


http://observer.com/2012/06/faulty-t...-get-it-right/

Faulty Towers: Midtown Needs a Makeover, with Twice as Tall Towers, But Can Mayor Bloomberg Get It Right?


Midtown, 2025? (Photo composite: Ed Johnson/NYO; Photos: Getty)



It all starts with Grand Central. (Getty)


By Matt Chaban
6/27/12

It was but one line in Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s State of the City address in January, but it could prove to be one of the biggest of his dozen years in office. “In the area around Grand Central, we’ll work with the City Council on a package of regulatory changes and incentives that will attract new investment, new companies and new jobs,” the mayor said from the stage inside Morris High School in the Bronx.......Now, it is time to remake the middle of Manhattan, to redevelop one of the most developed swathes of land in the world.

It was not the first time Robert Steel, the deputy mayor for economic development, had considered the plight of Midtown East, but he recalled it as the moment everything came into focus. Around this time last year, the former Goldman exec and Wachovia chief was standing on the roof of the Hearst Tower two blocks south of Columbus Circle, gazing out at the city surrounding him.....But it was not so much the Hearst Tower as the ones surrounding it that got Mr. Steel concerned. A few blocks south, Mort Zuckerman was getting underway on 250 West 55th Street. In the distance stood the new Times headquarters, and across the street the still mostly-empty 11 Times Square. To the north was the Time Warner Center, and most telling of all, 3 Columbus Circle–another 1920s beauty built for General Motors, shoddily reclad in glass during the last boom by Joe Moinian, an effort to modernize the building. Were Mr. Steel standing on the other side of Midtown, say atop the Bloomberg Building, he could point to almost no new development whatsoever besides the tower his boss and Vornado’s Steve Ross had built in 2004. And even then, the top half of that building, like the Time Warner Center, is filled with apartments for the likes of Jay-Z (Time Warner) and his wife Beyonce (Bloomberg). What new development there might be is much closer to 3 Columbus, buildings that have been “refreshed,” than anything built new, from the ground up.

.......“While new windows and HVAC systems can be installed, the fundamentals of ceiling heights and column configurations are fixed,” Mr. Zucckerman, chairman of Boston Properties and owner of a number of buildings in the area, including the iconic Citicorp Tower, said in an email. “To incentivize owners to empty leased office buildings and replace them simply requires that a much higher density be allowed.”

When the city began to look at solutions, the administration was struck by just how severe the situation in Midtown east had gotten. “We did an audit, and we found that 80 percent of buildings were more than 50 years old,” Mr. Steel said of Midtown East, roughly 39th Street to 57th Street, east of Fifth Avenue. “Basically it feels like the 1940s in a lot of places. We just think this should be a showcase place for the city, especially around Grand Central.” But the city is focusing on much more than just Grand Central, based on a preliminary presentation it gave to community boards earlier this month, with the potential upzoning of the entire area. Still, there is a special focus on the blocks around the train station, as well as along Park Avenue, seen as especially valuable as well as especially outdated.

An initial proposal is to be released on July 11, and the city hopes to begin the arduous public review process by the first quarter of next year—just before the notorious countdown clock at City Hall blinks off.......The past is an issue, as well, as some preservationists worry about taking a full accounting of Midtown’s historic fabric before we begin bulldozing it. “I’ll be the first to admit that just because a building is X years old doesn’t mean it’s worth saving and reusing,” said Peg Breen, president of the Landmarks Conservancy. “But we can’t just plow it all under and build Midtown anew. Why bulldoze the place without seeing what’s there first.”.......Vishaan Chakrabarti, director of Columbia University’s real estate development program and former head of the Department of City Planning’s Manhattan office, warned against knee-jerk preservation in the heart of Midtown. “This is the engine for the entire city,” he said. “We cannot freeze it in amber. If we do, we’ll end up like Paris, a museum and nothing else.” Pro-development types love invoking Paris. It is the bête noire of businessmen the world over, apparently.

Still, the city argues that it is not obsessing over Midtown but instead finally giving it the attention it was used to in the past after a fair amount of neglect. “Really, this is a response to the five borough economic plan, which has focused outside of Midtown more than any administration ever has, I think,” Mr. Steel said. This could be the case in more ways than one, as some traditional Midtown heavyweights, like SL Green, have felt neglected amidst the city’s westward expansion. Earlier this month, The Journal revealed that the city’s largest commercial landlord had teamed up with Hines, another player who has mostly developed along Third and Lex, to replace a clutch of turn-of-the-century buildings immediately west of Grand Central, on 42nd Street between Madison and Vanderbuilt avenues. The city freely admits that it is working with local stakeholders to craft its plan but denies that they are the ones sketching it out.

It might, and it might not. According to city planning sources, the proposal could get downsized to include only the immediate blocks surrounding Grand Central. There are almost 2 million square feet in development rights that once belonged to the Penn Central Railroad, currently owned by a little-known firm called Argent Ventures. The city would add to that pot by a few million square feet, selling off the extra air rights, which would go to fund improvements to the surrounding streets and the spaces within Grand Central, particularly the local, and long-neglected, subway stations. This would benefit but a few developers owning surrounding properties. City Hall denied it has shrunk its scheme, but also admitted that it has yet to finalize the boundaries.

[10023]

Just let them come when I'm no longer working in this neighborhood. I'd like to appreciate the new skyline from afar, not fight through even more crowded sidewalks and longer lines for lunch with all the new office workers this adds.

[babybackribs2314]

They should mandate the creation of 'skywalks' at a certain height above sea level (100'?) that each new building has to conform too, which adds a small bonus FAR. Then, make them accessible to office workers in the district only. Congestion problems would be significantly ameliorated, as there could be retail along the 'sidewalk' above as well, eliminating the need for office workers to go down for lunch, coffee, etc.

[599GTO]

Let's not. Skywalks are ugly and will ruin the look of Midtown Manhattan.