Massive Target store coming to Midtown

Big-box retailer Target is continuing its increasing expansion throughout the five boroughs with another smaller-format store, this time in a huge location: According to the New York Post, the chain is planning a 43,000-square-foot outpost on 34th Street, right across from the Macy’s flagship store.

In just the past few months alone, Target has announced plans for three new stores in the city—in Midwood, Hell’s Kitchen, and the East Village—along with opening its “flexible-format” (i.e. smaller and aimed at city dwellers) store in Brooklyn’s City Point megaproject. The Midtown store will be smaller than that Brooklyn location, and will share space with a Foot Locker and a Sephora.

Given the location—in one of the city’s most tourist-filled areas, and close to Penn Station—it’s unsurprising that Target wants to target out-of-towners with this particular outpost. (One way they’ll do that: grab-and-go food options will be located near an entrance on 33rd Street, closer to where people would enter Penn Station.) The bi-level store will sell the usual things you’d expect from Target—clothes, inexpensive housewares, beauty products, etc.—and will also have a CVS pharmacy.

It’s not like there isn’t competition for Target in this particular area: there’s a Kmart just a block away (and right next to one of Penn’s many entrances), along with retailers like Jack’s, a discount store on 33rd Street. But it doesn’t seem like the company is worried: “It speaks to the strength of the location because today in New York City, if the retailers can’t make money, they won’t take the location,” Anthony Malkin, the CEO of Empire Realty Trust (which brokered the deal), told the Post.

Assuming all goes according to plan, the store will open in October of this year.

REVEALED: Plans New Penn Station-Moynihan Train Hall Complex

In a presentation (pdf) Tuesday at the Association for a Better New York, Governor Andrew Cuomo announced that plans for transforming a revamped Penn Station-Moynihan Train Hall complex into a “world-class 21st century transportation hub” were back on track and ready to roll, complete with a slew of new renderings and the selection of a developer-builder team including the Related Companies, Vornado, and Skanska AB, to redevelop the Farley Building.

With more than twice the passenger traffic of JFK, LaGuardia, and Newark airports combined, the governor called the current Penn Station, “overcrowded, decrepit, and claustrophobic” and promised the new Moynihan Train Hall “will have more space than Grand Central’s main concourse, housing both Amtrak and LIRR ticketing and waiting areas, along with state-of-the-art security features, a modern, digital passenger experience, and a host of dining and retail options.”

In the first of the project’s two major parts, McKim, Mead & White’s 1913 Beaux-Arts James A. Farley Post Office will be the site of a newly-constructed 255,000-square-foot train hall that will serve both Amtrak and Long Island Rail Road passengers. Moynihan Train Hall, as it will be known, will hold more than 112,000 square feet of retail and 588,000 square feet of office space in addition to ticketing and waiting areas for the two train lines.

The new hall will employ state-of-the-art security measures and high-tech additions like free wifi and charging stations. Renderings have been based on designs by the architecture firm of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM) who have been attached to the project since its earliest stages. The Governor’s presentation states that, “A number of design concepts, including those received through the RFEI process, are under review that would add retail and improve passenger experience and station function.” It is possible that the selected team could proceed with a different firm.

In addition to the new hub, the MTA will thoroughly revamp the existing Penn Station’s 33rd Street LIRR concourse. This redesign will nearly triple the width of the existing corridor and result in higher ceilings, brighter lighting and new way-finding, ticketing and informational systems.

Also included in the plan is a complete renovation of both Penn Station subway stations—the A/C/E at Eighth Avenue and the 1/2/3 at Seventh Avenue–as per MTA plans, announced earlier this year, to update dozens of subway stations throughout the system.

Similar to the renderings released in January, the plans show a new glass skylight above the concourse, meant to reference the original Penn Station design, integrated into the building’s historic and architecturally dramatic steel trusses. From the architect’s description: “SOM’s design establishes a grand civic space that celebrates the unique history of the Farley Building while evoking the vaulted concourse of the original Penn Station.”

Cuomo has said the cost of the Train Hall project will be about $1.6 billion; $600 million will come from the developer of the hall’s retail space, $570 million will come from the Empire State Development Corporation and $425 million will come from Amtrak, LIRR, the Port Authority, and the federal government. The Penn Station LIRR corridor revamp will ring in at $170 million; the subway station facelifts will cost $50 million and could happen “as early as 2018.”

6sqft reported in December of last year that “… after a promise to close this year on the deal [with Related and Vornado] was left empty, Governor Cuomo seems to have had enough” of the long-stalled project, and in January posted renderings and an outline of the governor’s plans for a reboot with possible new partners on board.

650,000 people travel through Penn Station every day, more than the traffic at Newark, JFK, and LaGuardia airports combined. And if all goes according to plan, Governor Cuomo projects that number will double over the next 15 years. The project is scheduled to be completed in 2020.

Stairway to Hudson: $150M Sculpture In The Works

More than three years after he boasted that the centerpiece of Hudson Yards’ public plaza would be New York’s Eiffel Tower, Related Companies  chairman Stephen Ross Wednesday unveiled the design for a 16-story web of interconnected staircases that will rise among the mega-projects glass-and-steel towers.

The structure, titled “Vessel” and designed by Thomas Heatherwick, comes with a price tag of $150 million and will be in place at the Far West Side campus’ public square in two years.

“I wanted to create a 365-day Christmas tree,” Ross explained, comparing the copper-colored spectacle to Rockefeller Center’s holiday attraction during an unveiling ceremony.

Heatherwick’s structure, currently under construction in Italy, is made up of 154 interconnected staircases – some 2,500 steps – and 80 landings designed to offer various views of the new live-work-play neighborhood, which opened its first building in late May.

Several hundred onlookers gathered outside the 7 train subway station entrance to get their first glimpse at the long-awaited landmark as the sounds of construction buzzed on the surrounding towers.

Heatherwick noted he and his team felt “enormous pressure” to create a centerpiece that could compete for attention with the skyscraper around it where “the height wasn’t the main thing.”

“Vessel” can accommodate 1,000 people at a time within its lattice of staircases, which rises from a base measuring 50 feet in diameter that will widen to 150 feet as it climbs.

Ross had long wished to make a big splash with the centerpiece, and Related insiders had joked that there existed one picture of the sculpture that the chairman kept in his wallet.

Mayor Bill de Blasio, who was on hand for the unveiling ceremony and had seen early inspiration photos of the project, confirmed that Ross did “a very good job of keeping it close to the vest.”

“[That] added to the excitement,” he said.

Javits Center to Get Even Bigger With $1B Expansion Plan - Curbed NY

Governor Andrew Cuomo sure has been busy this week. As part of his 2016 State of the State agenda, the governor has detailed plans for an expansive, $3 billion revamp of Penn Station; allocated $300 million to bolster New York'senvironmental protection fund; and revealed a program to boost economic development. This morning, Cuomo detailed yet another component of his 2016 plan: to expand the Jacob K. Javits Center by 1.2 million square feet, in an ambitious plan intended to drive more events (and, by extension, cash) to the convention center.

The planned expansion would bring the convention center—already the country's largest such meeting place—to a whopping 3.3 million square feet, and would add five times the meeting space. The proposed expansion could cost as much as $1 billion, and according to Cuomo, construction is expected to begin sometime this year. (We're guessing this means the idea of a Javits-esque convention center at Sunnyside Yards is off the table.)

The expansion would have a few different components, which you can see below in new renderings (created by FXFOWLE) from the Governor's office:

One element would be a new, 58,000-square-foot ballroom, which Cuomo said would the largest such room in the northeast.

The expanded center would have five times the meeting space, thanks to the addition of a new exhibition hall and meeting rooms, which together would add nearly 650,000 square feet to the expanded space.

There would also be 22,000 square feet of "outdoor event space," which would join the convention center's enormous green roof as one of its al fresco amenities.

The expansion would also include a four-level, 633,000-square-foot truck garage which, according to Cuomo, would "move 20,000 trucks off the neighborhood streets."

During the press conference, Cuomo also touted the job creation possibilities of the plan (including 4,000 full-time and 2,000 part-time jobs), along with the fact that it could give a serious boost to the city's hotel industry—more events means more people who need hotel rooms, after all. "The Javits Center is the busiest convention center in the country," Cuomo said. "But we have to grow to stay ahead." Indeed.

Source: Javits Center to Get Even Bigger With $1B Expansion Plan - Coming Attractions - Curbed NY