With a completely transformed public atrium, lobbies, and podium exterior, KPF’s design creates a Class-A tenant environment and breathes new life into the civic neighborhood of Wall Street.
Kohn Pedersen Fox (KPF) is pleased to unveil new views of the redesigned ground level experience at 60 Wall Street. The firm’s extensive yet careful interventions include reimagining the building’s Privately Owned Public Space into a soaring atrium, redesigning the building’s lobbies, and updating the podium façade with a modern expression. Real estate investment trust Paramount Group, Inc. is redeveloping the project.
Providing direct access to Wall Street and Pine Street from the New York City Subway, and uniting the two thoroughfares with a pedestrian promenade, the revitalized Privately Owned Public Space (POPS) offers a direct link to the iconic district and the city beyond. KPF’s design transforms this urban room into an open, light-filled, and verdant place of life and activity. Arriving from the subway, one ascends into the new atrium through a gracious grand staircase, animated by a 100-foot tall interior green wall, the largest in North America, that spans the full length of the block. Above, a new skylight cut through the podium dramatically opens the public room to the sky above and generates an experience worthy of this place in Manhattan. The skylight also provides a visual connection between the trading floors above the atrium, which is activated by a restaurant and café, and both of the building’s lobbies, as well as Pine and Wall Streets.
“Our goal for 60 Wall Street, particularly in the time of COVID, was to create an environment that brings a sense of wellness to this intense and exciting urban community,” said Hugh Trumbull, AIA, KPF Design Principal. “By opening up the public room, infusing it with green, bringing in natural light, and visually uniting the two streets, we aim to bring the people of this neighborhood together where hopefully they will share ideas and chart the path to the future.”
In its current state, 60 Wall Street’s lobbies are separated from the public and retail spaces by the architecture of the building’s façade, which limits the ease of movement and creates a social barrier between the users. KPF’s design physically and aesthetically unites the lobbies, retail, and public spaces of the building through a creative architectural solution. The new lobbies add a mezzanine overlooking the space, and feature a large green wall as well as borrowed views into the atrium and retail areas, making it feel even more expansive.
Working in a landmarked district, changes to the exterior of 60 Wall Street’s podium are sympathetic to the context and surgical in scope, while enhancing the building’s street presence with a modern update. The design replaces the existing portico’s double row of columns with a single row. By retaining the concept of a colonnade screen, popular throughout the district, the new portico reinterprets the formal language into a fresh aesthetic that retains richness and stature while allowing more light to reach the interior spaces. New large-format windows on the façade increase transparency into the activities of the atrium and lobby.
‘Redesigned to accommodate a variety of top-tier tenants looking to base and build their future offices within the building, 60 Wall Street’s modern, column free floor plates, boasting uninterrupted, panoramic views of Manhattan, Downtown Brooklyn and Jersey City, uphold the building’s best-in-class legacy. Situated in a neighborhood rich with restaurants and transit options, the building further appeals to tenants’ employee pool,’ said Albert Behler, Chairman, Chief Executive Officer and President of Paramount. ‘The repositioning will transform 60 Wall Street, providing tenants with the benefits of a new building and the opportunity to create an office that best suits their unique needs.’
Improvements to the office floors include enhanced ventilation systems that utilize high-efficiency MERV 15 filtration and increased outside air per person with capabilities of providing 100% outside air to the spaces in ideal weather conditions.
Originally designed by Kevin Roche John Dinkloo & Associates in 1989, the 1.6 million square foot, 47-story 60 Wall Street is a premier downtown office building, offering excellent light and spectacular panoramic views from its tower floors. Two members of KPF’s design team worked on the original design for 60 Wall Street, which has helped the team understand the building and its construction process. KPF’s design approach respects the original building as the firm endeavors to reestablish the its status as a Class-A workplace destination.
Construction on the renovation is slated to begin in the summer of 2022.
KPF’s work at 60 Wall Street continues the firm’s track record of exceptional repositioning projects throughout New York City, including One Madison Avenue, for which a new glass tower atop a redeveloped podium marries modern office environments with over one acre of outdoor terraces; 390 Madison Avenue, where a surgical re-massing redistributes existing square footage in the form of eight new vertical stories; Hudson Commons, which adds 17 stories above a former warehouse to create state-of-the-art office space for tech tenants; and the renovation of 660 Fifth Avenue, which replaces an outmoded façade with a custom glass curtain wall that will maximize occupant comfort while reducing energy consumption.
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