The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey has selected Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners as the architects for an office tower above the north wing of the Port Authority Bus Terminal at 42nd Street and Eighth Avenue.
The tower will be developed by Vornado Realty Trust and Lawrence Ruben Company.
Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners is headed by Richard Rogers who designed the famous high-tech Centre Pompidou, or Beaubourg, in Paris with Renzo Piano, the gleaming Lloyd's of London tower in London, and the Ching Fu Group headquarters in Taiwan.
He had been designated to design a new eastern facade for the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center on the West Side of Manhattan and his other projects include Las Areas, the conversion of a bull ring in Barcelona to a circular leisure and entertainment complex and the 175 Greenwich Street skyscraper at Ground Zero in Lower Manhattan.
The Vornado/Ruben tower will have an angled exoskeleton of braces and will be 42 stories tall with two-stage escalators that cascade over 42nd Street and Eighth Avenue from the existing roof of the terminal that is noted for its external cross-bracing. The tower will be just to the east of the "Green Giant," Raymond Hood's famous Art Deco skyscraper for the McGraw-Hill Company before it relocated to the Avenue of the Americas.
The new tower will be directly across Eighth Avenue from a new skyscraper still under construction by SJP Properties that slants outward as it rises on the block just to the north of the recently completed New York Times tower at 41st Street and Eighth Avenue that has been designed by Mr. Piano and Fox & Fowle.
The proposed air rights development would add about 1.3 million square feet of office space over the terminal's north wing and include the renovation of about 55,000 square feet of retail space inside the terminal as well as an enhanced pedestrian and bus passenger circulation system.
The authority's board authorized negotiations for the next months with 20X Square, a joint venture of Vornado Realty Trust and Lawrence Ruben Co. The companies had been designated in 2000 as developers of the air rights but plans "stalled in 2003," according to a press release from the authority.
The bus terminal opened in 1950 and is the busiest bus passenger facility in the world handling 7,000 buses daily.
The roof of the terminal is now used for parking.
The Port Authority chose the Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners design over a 47-story tower designed by Pelli Clarke Pelli and a 48-story tower designed by Kohn Pedersen Fox.
The three designs were unveiled last July.
A November 5, 2008 article by Richard Vaughan in The Architects' Journal said that "it is understood that the Port Authority is optimistic about the project, despite the financial chaos that is hitting New York at present and is hoping to start on the site as early as spring 2009."
The tower will be developed by Vornado Realty Trust and Lawrence Ruben Company.
Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners is headed by Richard Rogers who designed the famous high-tech Centre Pompidou, or Beaubourg, in Paris with Renzo Piano, the gleaming Lloyd's of London tower in London, and the Ching Fu Group headquarters in Taiwan.
He had been designated to design a new eastern facade for the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center on the West Side of Manhattan and his other projects include Las Areas, the conversion of a bull ring in Barcelona to a circular leisure and entertainment complex and the 175 Greenwich Street skyscraper at Ground Zero in Lower Manhattan.
The Vornado/Ruben tower will have an angled exoskeleton of braces and will be 42 stories tall with two-stage escalators that cascade over 42nd Street and Eighth Avenue from the existing roof of the terminal that is noted for its external cross-bracing. The tower will be just to the east of the "Green Giant," Raymond Hood's famous Art Deco skyscraper for the McGraw-Hill Company before it relocated to the Avenue of the Americas.
The new tower will be directly across Eighth Avenue from a new skyscraper still under construction by SJP Properties that slants outward as it rises on the block just to the north of the recently completed New York Times tower at 41st Street and Eighth Avenue that has been designed by Mr. Piano and Fox & Fowle.
The proposed air rights development would add about 1.3 million square feet of office space over the terminal's north wing and include the renovation of about 55,000 square feet of retail space inside the terminal as well as an enhanced pedestrian and bus passenger circulation system.
The authority's board authorized negotiations for the next months with 20X Square, a joint venture of Vornado Realty Trust and Lawrence Ruben Co. The companies had been designated in 2000 as developers of the air rights but plans "stalled in 2003," according to a press release from the authority.
The bus terminal opened in 1950 and is the busiest bus passenger facility in the world handling 7,000 buses daily.
The roof of the terminal is now used for parking.
The Port Authority chose the Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners design over a 47-story tower designed by Pelli Clarke Pelli and a 48-story tower designed by Kohn Pedersen Fox.
The three designs were unveiled last July.
A November 5, 2008 article by Richard Vaughan in The Architects' Journal said that "it is understood that the Port Authority is optimistic about the project, despite the financial chaos that is hitting New York at present and is hoping to start on the site as early as spring 2009."
Architecture Critic
Carter Horsley
Since 1997, Carter B. Horsley has been the editorial director of CityRealty. He began his journalistic career at The New York Times in 1961 where he spent 26 years as a reporter specializing in real estate & architectural news. In 1987, he became the architecture critic and real estate editor of The New York Post.
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