One Vanderbilt. Credit: Raimund Koch.
Hudson Yards. Credit: Connie Zhou.
Brooklyn Point. Credit: Aaron Fedor.
As part of the biannual conference in April, the Urban Land Institute guided tours of significant projects around New York, including highlighting East Midtown’s rezoning with One Vanderbilt, the creation of Hudson Yards, and Brooklyn Point’s contributions to the neighborhood’s residential renaissance.
The tour “Revitalization of Office on Park Avenue” guided the group through Midtown East’s rezoning, which allows for 6.5 million square feet of new office space to be introduced over two decades to modernize the area’s aging building stock. The tour focused on One Vanderbilt, the tallest office tower in the neighborhood, which opened in 2020 with a new pedestrian plaza and introduced transit infrastructure improvements to ease congestion on subway platforms, improve circulation around Grand Central Terminal, and create new access via Grand Central Madison. Following a tour of One Vanderbilt, the group continued through the neighborhood with a stop at 343 Madison Avenue, a 49-story, 750,000-square-foot office tower currently under construction.
On the west side of Manhattan, “The Making of New Neighborhood” explored the transformation of what is now Hudson Yards from a desolate open space above the Long Island Rail Road train yard into the largest private real estate development in U.S. history and Manhattan’s first LEED Gold Neighborhood Development. With proximity to Moynihan Train Hall and the extension of the 7 subway line, Hudson Yards is an easy-to-access hub for residents, office workers, and tourists alike, organized around 14 acres of public space. The tour looked at the engineering and development challenges of building over active railways and the thesis for its success.
Looking at the residential revival in Downtown Brooklyn, “The Brooklyn Renaissance” examined the neighborhood’s 2004 rezoning, which was as a catalyst for transformative residential projects. The tour began with CityPoint, a mixed-use complex that incorporates a food hall, retail space, and Brooklyn Point, a 720-foot tower with 458 residences and the city’s highest infinity pool. Additionally, residents have access to over 40,000 square feet of amenities including an indoor pool, fitness center with a rock-climbing wall, and a children’s playroom.
The 2024 ULI Spring Meeting took place from April 9 to 11 in New York City. Along with site and building tours, additional KPF-featured events included a presentation from Principal Forth Bagley on central social districts and a session led by Director Carlos Cerezo Davila on embodied carbon.