The revival of the West Chelsea waterfront has been one in every of Manhattan’s biggest industrial and residential successes of the twenty first century.
But will there be enough demand for over 1,000,000 square feet of newly minted, state-of-the-art office space there by the tip of next yr?
L&L Holding Company and Columbia Property Trust hope their over-billion-dollar transformation of the historic terminal warehouse is nearing completion.
Developers recently topped off a six-story addition to the 130-year-old original structure.
Once upon a time, in a galaxy far, distant, it served as a transfer point for cargo stepping into and out of the town.
In a very different era, it was home to the legendary Tunnel nightclub within the Nineteen Eighties and Nineties.
The newly built 1.1 million square foot office space appears to be the one recent block of this size to be accomplished in late 2024 or early 2025, when developers are counting on the tip of the present market malaise.
The overall emptiness rate in Manhattan in the primary quarter of 2023 hit a frighteningly high of 16-20%, depending on which survey you follow. The lack of demand and dealing from home proceed to drive property values down, with several landlords even handing over the keys to lenders.
But managing director and L&L director David Orowitz struck a confident note.
He said Terminal Warehouse “combines authenticity and quite a lot of types and sizes of office products that can appeal to a wide selection of revolutionary corporations.”
Built in 1891, the Terminal Warehouse – previously called Terminal Stores – is a 700-square-metre “gardener” that occupies a whole, expansive block between Eleventh and Twelfth Avenues and 27 Zachodnia and 28 Zachodnia Streets.
It stands across twenty seventh Street from the much more massive Starrett-Lehigh Building, which has also been converted from railroad use to offices – a part of the Far West Side’s revival through adaptive reuse of abandoned former warehouses and wharves.
COOKFOX architects reorganized the inside to create a monumental public corridor and courtyard, and designed a six-story office addition on the west end of the constructing. The “redesigned” property may have 29 private terraces.
The construction work involved circumventing the constructing’s original features, including 500-year-old wood.
The plans required approval by the Monument Protection Commission, because the constructing is situated in a historic district.
Formal marketing will begin this summer, although no leasing team has been announced yet. Rents are expected to be at ‘trophy’ office levels within the West Chelsea/Hudson Yards areas.
There will even be roughly 100,000 square feet of retail space with storefronts on all 4 sides, with entrances from the sidewalk and indoor concourse.
When we first reported on the project in 2019, the developers were partners L&L and Normandy Real Estate, who paid $880 million for the positioning in 2018.
In 2020, Normandy was acquired by Columbia, which committed additional capital and joined L&L Holding as a co-general partner.
Several institutional investors are also involved within the project.
In July 2021, L&L and Columbia closed a $1.25 billion financing—the biggest construction loan issued in the town that yr.
