175 Park Avenue

Creative structural solutions allow a supertall structure to rise above below-grade transit lines on a tightly constrained site in Manhattan.

Location

New York, USA

Client

RXR Realty LLC; TF Cornerstone

Architect

Skidmore, Owings & Merrill

Project Value

Undisclosed

Project Status

In Design

Awards

Council for Tall Building and Urban Habitat, Future Project Award 2024 Award of Excellence

Sustainability

LEED Platinum targeted

A new icon in Midtown

175 Park Avenue, also known as Project Commodore, is a supertall set to replace the Hyatt Grand Central New York hotel, while also adding more than 2 million square feet of Class A office space. In addition to hotel and office, 10,000 square feet of retail across three levels will bring new businesses to the midtown neighborhood. Further, the development will include a 25,000-square-foot elevated public plaza that abuts Grand Central Terminal.

Nowhere to go but up

With views of the Chrysler Building and the adjacent Grand Central Station, the location is culturally iconic. But the site’s transit connections created a challenge for WSP’s Building Structures team.

Two major transit lines run beneath the site: the busy 42nd street Interborough Rapid Transit subway station and the Metro North commuter rail loop tunnel, which services Grand Central Terminal. The rail lines dissect the site, making most of the base unusable for the future foundations. The loop tunnel slices the base of the building in half, while the 42nd street subway station occupies most of the eastern half of the site, resulting in approximately 66 percent of the ground surface being untouchable and most of the useable ground in undesirable locations. Structural design needed to meet these site challenges and more, including a plan to keep all the rail lines and tunnel active and safe during construction.

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©Ekoo Media, Inc./Skidmore, Owings & Merrill

The project sits directly over Grand Central's 42nd Street subway station, where eight lines operate daily.

Blending engineering and art

Existing conditions and constraints resulting from the below-grade rail lines limited touch-down areas for the new structure. Foundations for the supertall structure had to be supported directly upon rock, which was accomplished with a combination of footing and caissons strategically located clear of the rail lines.

Bundled structural columns are one of only two touch-down areas on 42nd Street.

The building core, which forms the spine of the building structure and encompasses the entire elevator system, is also constrained since only 40 percent of the core could extend down to rock. The solution was a combination hanging and cantilevering core supported from a structural platform composed of super trusses spanning the entire site, with supporting mega columns located mostly along the edges of the tower. This structural system is linked to a beautiful exterior lattice frame, which completes the structural load path that directs the tower loads to the mega columns.

In 2024, 175 Park was recognized with the Future Project Award by the Council for Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat. The award of excellence focuses on building designs that advance sustainable vertical urbanism through innovation, efficiency, and potential influence on the industry. The building is expected to open in 2030.