NEW YORK CITY-Manhattan’s Far West Side got two votes of support this week: luxury-leather goods maker Coach sealed the deal to take over 600,000 square feet for their new corporate headquarters at Related Cos’ 26-acre mixed-use Hudson Yards site, and Cushman & Wakefield became exclusive leasing agent for Brookfield Office Properties’ 5.4 million-square-foot Manhattan West tower on Ninth Avenue between West 31^st and West 33^rd Streets.

Industry leaders tell GlobeSt.com that the two announcements further affirm the transformation of the once-beleaguered neighborhood into a transit-oriented, mixed-use community. “It used to be a real abandoned place, like something out of a Charles Bronson movie, a real dangerous part of town,” says Jeffrey Katz, CEO and principal partner of Sherwood Equities, who started investing in the Far West Side as early as 1985. The firm first purchased the westerly block-front of 34^th and 35^th Streets on 10^th Avenue in a quick-sale for $5 to $6 million after Mayor Ed Koch worked to push the adult bookstores, strip clubs and dive bars out of the area, Katz explained. “We bought that site kind of knowing that this is Manhattan and this is a stone’s throw from the central business district and good things would happen, and so they are,” he added.

And much progress is currently underway. Construction on Related’s 1.7 million square-foot tower is set to commence in mid-2012 and be ready for occupancy in 2015. Along with the 7 subway line extension, AMTRAK's new Moynihan Station and the new Hudson Boulevard Park, the 60-block, 300-acre neighborhood is starting to come into its own.