Google Earth aerial showing location One Broadway (CityRealty)
Unlike the tepid condo market, the Manhattan office market was ablaze in 2018, where nearly 42 million square feet of space was leased in the borough. According to Colliers International (h/t Bisnow), 2018 marks the most new lease-signings, renewals, and expansions in 17 years. “The total of 41.75M SF, I mean, really is a remarkable number,” Colliers International Executive Director Craig Caggiano tells Bisnow. "This year has bettered any year in the last two market cycles."
Evidence of Manhattan's commercial revival and residential malaise can be seen in the permits. Throughout the course of 2018, we've noticed a precipitous drop of new building applications for condos in pricey Manhattan neighborhoods as the residential sales market struggles to absorb months of inventory. A few developers itching to build have shelved their apartment plans to build offices instead, such as Oxford's retake on the Google-ready 550 Washington Street or SL Green's Facebook-eyed One Madison which was once slated for a soaring condo skyscraper penned by Daniel Libeskind.
The 1882 Washington Building when it doned a red brick and brownstone facade in the Queen Anne style (via http://rotographproject.blogspot.com/)
Photo of One Broadway via Gryffindor/Wikipedia
The latest new office venture to bust through the pipeline has been filed at the powerful address of One Broadway at the foot of the island across from Battery Park. Building permits from last Friday show its new owner, Midtown Equities, plans to add a massive new floor and roughly 37,000 square feet of space to the 180,646-square-foot building. Gensler is helming the design which will need the nod of the Landmark Preservation Commission to build. The application says the vertical enlargement would raise the building from its current 150-foot height to 208 feet. The new floor would likely be setback, yielding an amenity terrace along the 13th floor.
The landmarked building, whose bones date back to 1882, was once the 10-floor Washington Building which replaced an 18th-century mansion that was used by George Washington as his headquarters during the Revolutionary War. According to Atlas Obscura, the Washington Building gained a new stately limestone facade and additional floors in 1919 when the International Mercantile Marine Company (predecessor to the United States lines), a shipping company with 120 vessels, chose the gateway address as its new home. Vestiges of the building's maritime past can be subtly seen outside the old ticketing hall which is now occupied by a Citibank. The dour limestone face is colorfully adorned with sea icons and of
mosaic shields from port cities around the globe.
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