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Abstract
The strip of 42nd Street between Broadway and Eighth Avenue is still an asphalt jungle. But street crime is down, and pickpockets and con artists have been replaced by hordes of ordinary people. The state-city-subsidized revival of the 13-acre zone that forms the southern border of Manhattan's theater district is already a hit, yet only 142,000 of an eventual 8-million square feet of development is occupied. With only 1 site unaccounted for, the business establishment sees a street paved with gold. A new Times Square subway station and interim stores and eateries are keeping the street lively while construction proceeds at several sites.
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Photograph: TAPPED OUT Only the Times Square Theater is unclaimed in redevelopment area.
Real estate magnate Douglas Durst is part owner of New York state's largest organic farm. Construction's Dan Tishman raises llamas and trees in New England. Urban planner Rebecca Robertson is a transplant from Toronto, a city far away from the bite of the Big Apple. And Disney's own king, Michael Eisner, is America's reigning symbol of squeaky clean--from sea to shining sea.
So what's an odd bunch like this doing in a place like Times Square--for two generations reviled as the crossroads of cheese? They are creating the miracle of 42nd Street.
The strip between Broadway and Eighth Avenue is still an asphalt jungle. But street crime is down 50% since 1992. Pickpockets and con artists have been replaced by hordes of ordinary people. Marquees for the Lion King and Ragtime have prevailed over signs flashing ``XXX'' and ``Live Girls.'' And turf battles are between Disney and Warner stores.
Giant billboards camouflage construction's sidewalk sheds. And dirt is generated by dozers and dump trucks, not pimps and prostitutes. It's a changed scene.
The state-city-subsidized revival of the 13-acre zone that forms the southern border of Manhattan's theater district is already a hit, yet only 142,000 of an eventual 8 million sq ft of development is occupied. With only one site unaccounted for, the business establishment sees a street paved with gold.
``A public investment of $75 million has leveraged more than $2 billion in private investment,'' says Charles A. Gargano, who in 1995 became chairman of the state's Urban Development Corp., which he renamed the Empire State Development Corp., New York City. UDC, the state's enabler of urban economic development in 1982 formed the predecessor to the 42nd Street Development Project Inc., to turn around Manhattan's Tenderloin District.
Interim stores and eateries are keeping the street lively during the more lengthy construction work, as is a new Times Square subway station. The curtain came up on the New Victory children's theater in December 1995. In 1996, the New Amsterdam Theater started raking in audiences and kudos for The Lion King. The Ford Center for the Performing Arts, containing the restored landmark Apollo and Lyric Theaters, opened late last year with Ragtime. And coming later this year is Four Times Square, a 1.6-million-sq-ft skyscraper billed as the nation's first ``green'' speculative office tower.
Following in 1999 are two multiscreen entertainment-retail complexes: Tishman Urban Development Corp.'s 200,000-sq-ft E Walk will feature 13 sony/loews theaters. Forest City Ratner Cos.'s $160-million development will spotlight a Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum, a 25-screen AMC Theatre complex. The work even involved sliding the 3,700-ton Empire Theater down the block (enr 3/9 p. 17). Next year, the New 42nd Street Inc. will begin construction of a 10-story rehearsal studio-theater-office building on the site of the Selwyn office building, which collapsed onto the street and into the E Walk excavation after a storm last December (enr 1/tk p. tk). Tishman is slated to begin construction on the 650,000-sq-ft E Walk hotel late this year. And the Roundabout theater company has just announced it will revive the Selwyn Theater.
Three more office towers will join Four Times Square. the Reuters-Rudin tower in tktk; and the two Boston Properties/Park Tower Realty towers in tktk and tktktk. One will envelop the operational Disney Store.
Sounds like easy street now, but for the first decade, few wanted to touch the zone with a 10-ft pole. ``We had interest from discos and mud-wrestling clubs,'' says Cora Cahan, president of the New 42nd Street, an independent not-for-profit set up by the 42nd Street Development Project to resuscitate the block's historic yet raggedy vaudeville houses.
With Manhattan's main bus terminal at one end, the zone has always had high pedestrian counts. It had ``fabulous underlying economics but it still looked like an albatross,'' says Rebecca Robertson, 1990-97 president of the 42nd Street Development Project, and currently a vice president with local theater owner, the Shubert Organization Inc.
The revival effort has survived 44 lawsuits, changes in local and state government, a real estate meltdown and its skeptics. Even as recently as 1993, ``there was a huge credibility gap,'' says Wendy Leventer, the 42nd Street Development Project's acting president.
The state's original plan called for ``clear-cutting'' 42nd Street, except for the theaters, to make way for four skyscrapers, a merchandise mart and a hotel (enr 4/15/82 p, 14). When Philip Johnson-designed office complex was unveiled, it was hailed by politicians and corporate interests and generally despised by the public. It was ``another Rockefeller Center, says Robertson. architecture snubbed the street's colorful past as a legitimate entertainment center.
The Johnson design lost center stage in the late 80s, because the entire enterprise got bogged down in legal challenges that prevented the state from condemning the land. Most suits were brought by to-be-displaced merchants, and landlords outside the zone who feared its tax subsidies would leave them out in the cold.
By April, 1990, the state had won all the lawsuits and took title to three quarters of the property. ``That was a very important moment,'' says Leventer. Prudential Insurance Co. of America and Park Tower Realty, the original developer of the towers, issued the state a $241-million letter of credit, as required in its agreement. The state needed some of the money to compensate the 400 or so displaced businesses.
The next fly in the ointment was the real estate market crash. The recession made Prudential and Park Tower to delay office tower construction until the market returned. They proposed emptying sites and fencing in the lots.
Robertson sensed that would have meant the death of the entire effort, and saw a chance to revamp the flawed Johnson scheme. The 42nd Street Now plan, which required a lively, colorful streetscape, was unveiled in 1993.
With a honky tonk not corporate look, ``we were taking the street back,'' says Robertson. ``Our plan was embraced by the public.''
After two years of renegotiations, Prudential agreed to go along with the revamped plan. Instead of simply razing existing buildings, it agreed to build interim tourist-related retail and eateries. In return, it was granted permission to delay construction of the towers. The Johnson plan was history.
At the same time, Cahan was having trouble attracting legitimate theater developers. She had an idea for a high-caliber theater for youngsters, something New York City lacked.
A kids theater smack in the middle of Manhattan's former tenderloin district? ``People thought they were completely out of their minds,'' says Leventer, calling the idea ``courageous.''
The $11.4-million New Victory, $9.2 million indirectly from the original Prudential letter of credit and the rest raised by New 42nd Street, opened on Dec. 11, 1995.
In the summer of 1993, while the New Victory was starting to perk, Robertson got a call from Robert A.M. Stern, the 42nd Street Now master-plan architect. Stern was between planes with Michael Eisner and wanted to show him the decrepit New Amsterdam Theater. After the visit, Stern called Robertson again. ``You better get Disney," he told her.
Disney wanted to buy, not rent, a theater to stage Broadway musicals. But the company didn't want to take on any financial risk, says Robertson, and made one giant stipulation: the state and city had to clear the remaining 150 or so ``sex'' merchants from the block. ``We would have done anything to get Disney,'' she says.
A memo of understanding was signed on Dec. 31, 1993. The final agreement was inked on Dec. 31, 1994. The plan called for the city and state to loan Disney $25 million of the theater's $33-million renovation cost (enr tktktkt). Disney also decided to open a store on the office site next to the theater.
``Getting Disney opened the floodgates,'' says Leventer. Other developers started to line up.
In the summer of `93, Robertson got another unexpected call. Douglas Durst, president of the local Durst Organization Inc., was interessted in buying Prudential's long-term lease for the Four Times Square site.
Robertson was amazed. Durst, against government intervention in the real estate market, had been redevelopment project's most fervent foe. But having lost all its court battles, Durst decided to switch sides. "He took the leap before anyone else," says Robertson. "I have nothing but admiration for Douglas Durst.'' And Four Times Square ``is extraordinarily sensitive'' to the new plan, she adds.
Durst had bought an 11,000-sq-ft adjoining site to expand the tower's footprint to 44,000 sq ft. With that, ``we were able to focus on design and sculpt the building,'' says Robert Fox, a principal of New York City-based Fox & Fowle Architects. ``It really fits into its environment,'' he adds.
And it is a building that is environmentally fit. ``We feel a great responsibility in defining a green speculative office building,'' says Jonathan Durst, Durst's executive vice president and Douglas' cousin.
But Durst is not going green to be altruistic. Green buildings make sense operationally, says Durst, for they cost less to run. For the same reason, they are attractive to tenants.
Though the greening of the 700-ft-tall Four Times Square will cost five to 10% more up front, payback periods are two to three years in most cases, says Durst.
Next time, there should not be any cost premium to go green. ``If you start at the very beginning of the project, which we didn't, there is no increment in cost and some savings in some areas,'' says Pamela Lippe, Durst's environmental consultant, who also runs the nonprofit educational organization Earth Day New York. For example, by increasing the efficiency of the skin, one can downsize the chillers, she says.
Durst and its team freely acknowledge the limits of going green in the speculative world. ``This is not a state-of-the-art green building,'' says Lippe.
It doesn't have thermal storage, underfloor air distribution or fiber optics, but it does have many of the bells and whistles of sustainability.
Perhaps the most significant difference between this and all other spec developments in the U.S. is a major change in what Lippe calls the "flawed process of design and construction."Instead of a linear process, there is collaboration on decisions. Even the subcontractors and the tenants are engaged in the effort.
For Four Times Square, the owner started out by holding a three-day retreat for the consultants and the construction manager. Later, the green team, including Douglas Durst, presented its ideas to the subcontractors to "get them on board,'' says Mel Ruffini, vice president in charge of the project for Tishman Construction Corp. of New York. That was a first for Tishman and probably for most of the subs, he adds.
Contractors were required to develop waste management programs, including filling out lots of forms, to help the team optimize use of recycled materials and to reduce the use of packaging materials and generation of waste on the site. ``They would stop payment if I didn't fill out the forms,'' says one sub.
``It's meant more legwork for the contractors,'' says Ruffini, but some have been especially creative.
cec Elevator Cab Corp., Queens, N.Y., built eight reusable timber crates to deliver the tower's 30 elevator cabs. The delivery truck that brings the cabs returns the dismantled crates for the next batch. ``It cost us a little bit more but there will be savings in the reuse,'' says Rafael Croissiert, cec's project manager.
Otis Elevator Co., Farmington, Conn., also jumped on the waste management campaign. William M. Cassidy, Otis' project manager, says the biggest change was that some motors were shipped uncrated on flatbeds covered only by tarps. Standard procedure is to enclose, palletize and shrink-wrap for international shipping, whether or not a package is going abroad.
Crateless ``is a real plus on the jobsite," says Cassidy. There are savings in shipping, and labor in the shop and field for uncrating and uncrating, he adds.
On the process side, Durst paid for a computer setup so Cantor Seinuk Group, the local structural engineer could send and receive all drawings to and from the steel contractor, Helmark Steel Inc., Wilmington, Del. ``We checked 16,000 sheets of shop drawings with no paper,'' says Fox.
Commissioning is another critical ingredient for a green building. At Four Times Square has a substantial commissioning program led by Tishman and including the Fox & Fowle, Cosentini and Durst facilities and maintenance personnel. "Our feeling is that we know the building better than anyone else," says Fox. "Why would we want to waste that?"
At Four Times Square, the team selected high-efficiency, variable-speed pumps, motors and fans; a gas-fired absorption heating, cooling and air conditioning system that uses no chlorofluorocarbons; up to 85% microbial filtration for fresh air; high-performance glass curtain wall; and efficient lighting with occupancy sensors and controls.
There is a central building automation system and plans to use environmentally friendly cleaning products. There are two waste chutes for recycling.
The building will have a small array of demonstration photovoltaic spandrel panels and two fuel cells. And a dedicated full height exhaust duct will alow fresh-air purges of contaminants and smoking rooms on every floor. Indoor air will be monitored for volatile organic compounds, chemical contaminants and smoke.
``The creative thing we did was using available technology and staying within a cost-effective budget,'' says Douglas C. Maas, a partner of the job's consulting engineer, Cosentini Associates, New York City.
On the construction materials end, existing footings were reused. To reduce steel tonnage and still accommodate lateral loads, the Cantor Seinuk Group designed an exposed steel hat truss and married it to a composite steel and concrete core and perimeter columns. The approach reduced overall steel tonnage by 1,500 tons and provide better structural stability and improved stiffness, says Ahmad Rahimian, tktkt in charge for The Cantor Seinuk Group, New York City.
Lippe, however, is now questioning the environmental unfriendliness of steel. Though in production, steel uses more energy than concrete, it is 100% recyclable, she says, where concrete isn't.
For green to work in the long run, the tenants need to participate. To engage the them, Durst is circulating lengthy and detailed tenant guidelines, to help them select finishes and more. There is even a glossary of terms. Energy conservation and better indoor air quality can improve worker productivity, "resulting in economic advantage to the employer....'' say the guidelines.
To turn others toward greener pastures, Durst led the publication of a buildings environmental resource guide. ``The Dursts are really committed to bringing the rest of the industry along,'' says Lippe of Lessons Learned, Four Times Square, which she wrote and Earth Day New York produced.
Already Fox & Fowle and Tishman are making the grass greener at the Reuters/Rudin project, on the other side of the street.
Just as green is spreading to other Times Square projects, the 42nd Street revival is spreading beyond the zone's borders. "There is very strong interest in real estate development from 34th to 57th Streets,'' says Gargano. ``There has been a multiplying effect here.''
Just outside the redevelopment zone, the Port Authority is about to announce an air rights developer for the space above the bus terminal. And Planet Hollywood is building a music-dance hall (see box, p. tk) on Broadway.
The buzz over 42nd Street's comeback has even spread beyond the city, says Gargano. Times Square as a model for other blighted districts? You bet, chorus Cahan and others. If it can happen here, it can happen anywhere.
Photograph: DANCE HALL DIGS Planet Hollywood is clearing the cellar floor of a 22-story building. Nine columns were extended downward; three were removed.
PHOTO BY MICHAEL GOODMAN FOR ENR
Photograph: ON STAGE Several 42nd Street theaters have been restored to rave reviews.
PHOTO BY MICHAEL GOODMAN FOR ENR
Photograph: TOAST OF THE TOWN
Gov. George Pataki (second from right) and Empire State Development Corp.'s Charles Gargano click glasses after the successful move of the Empire Theater. Forest City Ratner is incorporating the landmark into an entertainment-retail center with 25 movie screens and a wax museum.
PHOTO BY MICHAEL GOODMAN FOR ENR
Photograph: WALKING ON STEEL
Tishman's E Walk, another entertainment-retail development, takes form (right) as Durst's Four Times Square, billed as the first ``green'' speculative office tower in the U.S., nears completion at the opposite end of the 42nd Street redevelopment zone.
PHOTO BY MICHAEL GOODMAN FOR ENR
Photograph: MIRROR, MIRROR Glass wall is insulated.
Photograph: GREEN THUMBS Lippe (left), Tishman, Durst cousins and Fox flank model of tower.
Copyright 1998 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.