https://commercialobserver.com/2022/...rmation-tower/
Don Peebles Hopes to Build the Most Inclusive Skyscraper in Manhattan
Developer Don Peebles has a dream to pull off a 2 million-square-foot, mixed-use giant across from the Javits Center that he says will be the most inclusive skyscraper in U.S. history
BY CATHY CUNNINGHAM
MARCH 21, 2022
Quote:
On the West Side of Manhattan, just across from the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center, sits a 1.2-acre site. A piece of land of that size is like gold dust in Manhattan — and Don Peebles has big plans for it.
And he has named it Affirmation Tower. A development team comprised of Peebles’ Peebles Corporation; Cheryl McKissack Daniel, president and CEO of McKissack & McKissack; Craig Livingston, managing partner of Exact Capital; and Steven Witkoff, chairman and CEO of Witkoff, have proposed a 2 million-square-foot mixed-use development for the vacant site.
|
Quote:
|
Hochul and the Empire State Development Corp. have not set a release date for the new RFP, although Peebles expects it soon, and his confidence in Affirmation Tower being the winning proposal is unwavering. If they win the RFP, its development team aims to create a civic landmark, and the most inclusive building in New York City, at the site.
|
Quote:
Affirmation Tower’s genesis already encompasses a roster of firsts. If given the green light by state officials, Affirmation Tower would be the world’s tallest building owned by majority Black-owned companies, the tallest building ever built by a woman-led contractor, and the world’s tallest skyscraper designed by a Black architect.
Reaching 1,633 feet, it would be the tallest building by floor height in the Western Hemisphere, but technically the second-tallest building in New York City (this was an intentional decision to keep its spire shorter than 1 World Trade Center’s out of respect for what 1 WTC represents) and include office space, two hotels and an open, inviting aesthetic with public community spaces available to New Yorkers and tourists alike. An observation deck at the top would include an event venue and a skating rink.
The NAACP, the country’s longest-standing civil liberties organization, has already committed to occupying 24,000 square feet, which would serve as the organization’s New York headquarters.
|
Quote:
The developers’ plans are set, although the site’s RFP process is ongoing.
Just as Peebles’ conviction in his plans for Affirmation Tower is steadfast, so is his belief that affordable housing isn’t a good fit for the site, although that’s what Hochul is reportedly exploring.
“Obviously, affordable housing is a sensitive issue and an important issue,” Peebles said last week. “But it doesn’t belong across the street from one of the largest convention centers in the United States — a tourism and economic engine for New York. My understanding is that there’s going to be a new RFP that will be coming out shortly, and we’ll go from there. I feel as committed to the project and its concept as I did before. I think it’s a project whose time has come.”
|
Quote:
Deepening the project’s significance as an ode to Black culture, Affirmation Tower is also now slated to be the location of New York’s first civil rights museum, the Museum of Civil Rights, led by the Rev. Al Sharpton and previously planned as part of a development in Harlem.
“We are fortunate enough to now have the rights to develop the museum,” Peebles said. “We’ll have it [at Affirmation Tower], which, frankly, is much more accessible to a larger number of visitors from around the world who come to New York and are in Midtown West. Javits Center alone draws tens of millions of people a year. We think that this is the appropriate place for it, and, given that we have the NAACP offices in the building as well, it’ll be a wonderful opportunity for visitors to access the museum.”
Peebles went on to note that the National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) in Washington, D.C., is the most-visited museum in the Smithsonian Institution system. And David Adjaye, NMAAHC’s award-winning Ghanaian-British architect, is the architect behind Affirmation Tower.
Founded by Sharpton and Judge Jonathan Lippman, the civil rights museum was previously supposed to take 48,000 square feet at One45, an almost 1 million-square-foot office, retail and residential project in West Harlem that includes Sharpton’s National Action Network headquarters.
The project received some community pushback at its original site, Peebles said, and he and Sharpton struck a deal in early March to bring the museum to the proposed Affirmation Tower site instead. Sharpton couldn’t be reached for comment by press time.
“What’s nice about that is [Affirmation Tower] is in an area that’s heavily trafficked already,” Peebles said. “I think in Harlem the community was struggling with the various disruptions of a massive development in what’s really a residential community overall. We’re excited about building it, and we think it’s another aspect that will help the state understand why this project is very important.”
|
Quote:
At first glimpse of Affirmation Tower’s renderings, it almost looks like an upside down structure, its five rectangular boxes ascending in size to the top. That’s intentional, reflective of the debut of the first skyscraper built by a team of Black architects, developers, lenders and builders in New York City’s history.
“We’re trying to turn the industry upside down, and the building reflects that,” Peebles said.
….. Affirmation Tower would create more than 50,000 new jobs — construction as well as permanent — and provide more than $3.5 billion in new tax revenue to New York state in the first 30 years, according to Peebles. “If [Gov. Hochul] wants to use that money for affordable housing, go forward and do that,” Peebles said. “It’s better than depressing the economic outcome of another project when you can take all this money and use it to finance tens of thousands of affordable units.”
|
Quote:
|
”Affordable housing solves one small element of what people are facing in New York, but it’s lack of economic opportunity that creates this increased demand for affordable housing,” he said. “We’ve got the top of the tower, which will be a tourist attraction, two hotels that support Javits Center and visitors and travelers, and office space to create more jobs and economic activity by getting people back into their offices. And now we’ve got the Museum of Civil Rights. We think this is going to be one of the top, if not the top, tourist attraction in Manhattan.”
|
Quote:
After deciding this would be his chance to build a supertall that mattered, Peebles started off, day one, with a commitment to utilize a minimum of 35 percent minority- and women-owned businesses in the tower’s development.
McKissack Daniel, a civil engineer with more than 25 years of experience in design and construction, has worked on major projects such as Atlantic Yards and Columbia University’s Manhattanville expansion. She’s also currently working on the new Terminal One at JFK International Airport.
She and Peebles have known each other since they were freshmen in college, and have worked together on many projects over the years.
A fifth-generation owner of her company, McKissack Daniel said the project’s symbolic significance holds extra importance for her personally. She comes from a long lineage of architects and builders that began with an enslaved ancestor in 1790.
The enormity of what the development team would be accomplishing with Affirmation Tower hit McKissack Daniel when she first saw Adjaye’s designs. She said: “Just its magnitude, and what it could represent in New York. Being a great granddaughter of a slave and being able to build one of the tallest buildings in Manhattan just gave me chills.”
|
Quote:
The project also marks an important professional step forward for McKissack Daniel and her firm, as part of the development team, not just the construction team, for the first time.
“This will open up a whole other line of business around development,” she said. “I feel honored and blessed to be mentored by someone like Don Peebles when it comes to development.”
|
Quote:
Having not built a supertall structure previously, Peebles reached out to Witkoff to join the Affirmation Tower development team (and bring capital partners into the deal).
“I think it says a lot about [Wikoff], that he’s as committed to inclusion as I am,” Peebles said. “I think what it shows is that we can all work together and do something great. We’re hopeful that not only does it make a statement, it’s opening up the floodgates for others.”
That statement is the “glaring deficiency and failure of New York City real estate, in its inability or unwillingness to be inclusive,” Peebles said.
|
Quote:
With Witkoff on board, the team started designing the building.
“I felt that David Adjaye would send the right message of the building as a super talented global architect, who also happens to be a person of color,” Peebles said, adding that he also hopes it will put other real estate developers on the spot when it comes to planning their own developments, “because, if Affirmation Tower can do it, if Witkoff and Peebles and McKissack and Livingston [of Exact Capital] can build this project in an inclusive way, why can’t you?”
|
__________________
NEW YORK is Back!
“Office buildings are our factories – whether for tech, creative or traditional industries we must continue to grow our modern factories to create new jobs,” said United States Senator Chuck Schumer.
Last edited by NYguy; Mar 21, 2022 at 5:32 PM.
|
Prev
Linear Mode
