NEW YORK CITY—Mayor Bill de Blasio, City Council member Dan Garodnick and borough president Gale Brewer announced Friday a multi-part strategy to strengthen East Midtown as a world-class 21st century commercial district.
Citing the Grand Central Terminal area's “shortage of modern office space and the challenges to its overstrained infrastructure,” city officials have charged the Department of City Planning with moving forward a two-track process that will deliver in both the short- and long-term.
First, the department will advance a zoning proposal to allow for larger state-of-the-art buildings along Vanderbilt Avenue that would provide specific, significant and upfront public infrastructure upgrades. The initiative is designed to ensure that property owners provide for improvements at Grand Central Terminal to relieve subway station bottlenecks and create new public open space sought by local stakeholders.
SL Green Realty Corp.—the owner of a large site at Vanderbilt Avenue and East 42nd Street—is expected to be the first applicant for this new zoning special permit. The New York Times reports that the developer plans to construct a 65-story tower just west of Grand Central that would serve as the corporate headquarters for TD Bank. The tower would soar 1,200 feet above 42nd Street, 150 feet taller than the Chrysler Building. An SL Green spokesman declined to comment.
Separately, Council Member Garodnick, Borough President Gale Brewer, and DCP Chairman Carl Weisbrod will begin a “ground-up planning process for Greater East Midtown,” according to the city.The process is expected to tackle a host of complex issues that will provide a basis for future zoning, infrastructure and policy initiatives.
“We are going to keep New York City competitive, and do it through strategic investments and ground-up planning. These are the kind of policies that won't just pay off today, but will lay the groundwork to keep districts like East Midtown thriving and attracting new business for decades to come,” says Mayor Bill de Blasio.
Adds Marc Holliday, CEO of SL Green Realty Corp. “We will be moving forward with our plans for One Vanderbilt, a new world-class office tower. The project will invest more than $100 million in Grand Central's transit infrastructure, dramatically improving access to the station and circulation through it. We are proud to invest in Midtown's future.”
Says Steven Spinola, president of the Real Estate Board of New York, “I want to thank Mayor de Blasio, Deputy Mayor Glen, Chairman Weisbrod, and Council Member Garodnick for outlining a sensible plan that will allow development and growth where it is ready to happen while continuing to work on balancing the issues involved in the larger rezoning area. We appreciate that the administration has made this a priority.”
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Rayna Katz
Rayna Katz is a seasoned business journalist whose extensive experience includes coverage of the lodging sector, travel and the culinary space. She was most recently content director for a business-to-business publisher, overseeing four publications. While at Meeting News, a travel trade publication, she received a Best Reporting award for a story on meeting cancellations in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina.
