The skyline in the Hudson Yards area is taking shape — at least on paper.
Here’s the first look at a new rendering (see right) for developer Joseph Moinian’s 1.7 million-square-foot tower at 3 Hudson Boulevard, bounded by the new park, the Javits Center and West 34th and 35th streets.
Designed by Dan Kaplan of FXFOWLE, the roughly 1,000 foot-high tower will turn slightly to catch the sunshine as well as views of the Hudson River and public spaces within Hudson Yards.
As the Manhattan street grid is slightly off the true north-south axis, Kaplan said the tower will align to the street grid at the base, and then do the twist.
“It has a subtle, elegant spin and only rotates the 22 degrees as you go up,” said Kaplan. “It’s enough to give it a distinctive form, but not so much that it contorts the building.”
While the eastern and western ends of the building will change as it rises, the long sides of the structure will stay consistent.
“So that is how we were able to marry floor efficiencies with the mechanics,” Kaplan said.
The twist is also “great for tuning the building to solar,” as a unique highlight of the project will be solar-paneled awnings, or “eyebrows,” that will shield the south-side occupants from the sun while generating electricity with photovoltaic cells.
“They are architectural projections, and the revisions to the zoning code anticipate these kinds of devices,” Kaplan explained. “You will start to see more of these.”
The building will also have several roof terraces and a rooftop deck shielded from the winds.
“He’s been a magician in making this design efficient and beautiful and LEED Platinum,” said Arthur Mirante, tri-state president of Avison Young, which is leading the tenant marketing for the Moinian Group.
Because the building features an entrance to the new No. 7 line inside and has the new Hudson Boulevard Park at its eastern foot, Mirante said he is pitching the best site in the “center” of the new West Side. Construction on bedrock can start in 2014, and the building will be ready in 2016 or 2017.
“It’s a great building,” said Moinian at last week’s Real Estate Board of New York banquet.
The base could be designed as either trading or retail, Mirante said, with residential added at the top of the tower should an anchor office tenant not object. Asking rents for the base will start in the $80s per foot and rise from there.
“The whole building could be office or mixed use,” said Mirante. “We really have a clean slate, which is really exciting and will allow us to go after the monster tenants.”
We still think the new park, which will run from West 30th to West 42nd streets as well as the boulevard, should be renamed in honor of the mayor who has made the entire area possible.
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Daniel Ghadamian and Josh Zamir of Capstone Equities, along with Steve Shokouhi, have bought One Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn for $14.2 million. The tenants are now a Five Guys and another retail tenant.
“This is a branding opportunity with signage and a spectacular corner, as it will be repositioned as a retail glass block for a national brand,” said Ghadamian.
One Flatbush is also across from 30 Flatbush, a 250,000 square-foot office building Capstone owns and leases to Con Edison for its offices.
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A new Harmon drugstore will be opening in Chelsea later this year at 675 Ave. of the Americas at West 22nd Street.
We hear the standalone Harmon will encompass 10,000 square feet in the same building where Trader Joe’s caters to healthy-food junkies. It is also where Weight Watchers International, which caters to people who are trying not to be food junkies, will be moving this spring into 125,644 square feet of offices.
The Harmon chain was purchased by Bed Bath & Beyond and has since been incorporated inside the parent company stores.
Peter Ripka, Andrew Mandell and Richard Skulnik of Ripco Real Estate, who represent the Mattel Building, did not return requests for comment. Asking rents on this strip of the Ladies Mile are about $200 a square foot on the ground floor.
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Stuart Romanoff told us he has been planning his High Line building at 860 Washington St. for many years while working on removing the old tenants, demolishing the building, designing the new one and getting permits to prepare it for a development partnership.
The new partnership with Jeffrey Sussman of Property Group Partners was negotiated through Douglas Harmon of Eastdil Secured and sealed at the end of last year with an $81 million investment, city records show.
Romanoff previously created the design for a new 10-story glass building with architect James Carpenter.
“We could have tunneled over the High Line,” Romanoff said. “But we wanted to leave it open, as it was better for the neighborhood.”
Some preservationists woke up last week and are complaining the High Line will lose its city and river views to various projects, including this one, which will be shading High Line supporter Diane von Furstenberg’s domed glass studio.
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The New York Times is downsizing, sort of. A new marketing brochure from Greiner-Maltz is pitching a sublease of 6,000 square feet of offices at the paper’s 400,000-square-foot modern printing plant near LaGuardia Airport that will have its own entrance and access to the company cafeteria for $45 per foot. An additional 85,000 square feet of parking is also available for about $8 per foot.
