The first skyscraper at the $25 billion Hudson Yards project opened Tuesday after 3½ years of construction, drawing office workers to a once-desolate area of Manhattan's far west side that's now transforming into a business enclave.
About 300 employees of Coach Inc. moved into new headquarters at 10 Hudson Yards, where the luxury-handbag maker soon will be joined by tenants including L'Oreal USA, SAP, VaynerMedia and Boston Consulting Group. The 52-story tower at 10th Avenue and West 30th Street, designed by the architecture firm Kohn Pedersen Fox, is fully leased.
The milestone is just the beginning for the developer, Related Cos., which wants to keep tenant momentum going as it pushes ahead with the rest of its 28-acre project and competitors plan their own skyscrapers nearby. Related was the pioneer in the area with Hudson Yards, which it calls the biggest private real estate development in U.S. history.
It ultimately will contain some 17.6 million square feet of buildings and 14 acres of open space, most of it built on land leased from the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.
"The best is yet to come, but this is pretty good," Stephen Ross, Related's chairman, said at an event celebrating the opening of 10 Hudson Yards. "When you think about a project and you see it come into fruition, it's very exciting."
Jeff Blau, Related's chief executive officer, said he's looking ahead to the challenge of completing the rest of the project's first phase, mostly on a platform above the eastern section of the rail yards. Planning is underway for a 13-acre section to the west, Blau said in a phone interview last week.
The tower at 10 Hudson Yards, built first because it didn't require a platform, "is the most spectacular office building in New York City," Blau said last week. "There is nothing that looks like this. It's a full transformation of the west side of Manhattan."
Coach's space at the tower, totaling about 700,000 square feet, includes a design studio, a private cafeteria, a large open-air terrace and what it calls the "Heritage Room," a gathering spot for as many as 250 people. The tower's lobby showcases more than 100 purses along with a video wall flashing product designs.
"Relative to where we've been, we're obviously in a much more open space, a light and airy glass tower," Coach Chief Executive Officer Victor Luis said at Tuesday's event. "It's a very different working environment from where we've been, which will allow for much more collaboration amongst and between teams, some of which have been working until now in different buildings."
With about 1,200 Coach employees eventually enjoying the 360-degree views of the city and across the Hudson, Luis said he wasn't worried about employees staring out the windows instead of working. "An occasional daydream, if it leads to creativity, may not be such a bad thing."
The High Line, a public park built atop an abandoned railroad trestle that winds to the south, makes a western turn through the base of the skyscraper. All the building's tenants -- about 7,000 people total -- will be moved in by year's end, according to Blau.
Just north of Coach's building, the larger 30 Hudson Yards is rising, set to become the new home of Time Warner Inc. Last month, Related announced an agreement with the law firm Milbank Tweed Hadley & McCloy for space at 55 Hudson Yards, one of two more skyscrapers planned for the project's eastern phase.
Business on 06/01/2016