Tall & Urban News

A New York city building once owned and reclad by US President Donald Trump is headed for the wrecking ball. A new joint development by TF Cornerstone, RXR Realty, and MSD Capital has been announced in its place, featuring 2 million square feet (185,806 square meters) of office and retail space, as well as a brand-new identity for the current Grand Hyatt hotel.

Located at 109 East 42nd Street, just southeast of Grand Central Station, the 26-floor structure wasn’t always a Trump property. It is in fact 100 years old. Built in 1919 by the Bowman-Biltmore Hotels group, the Commodore Hotel was originally a brick-clad building with over 2,000 rooms and a world-renowned lobby.

In one of its first forays into Manhattan real estate, in the late 1970s, the Trump Organization purchased and remodeled the entire structure for US$100 million, redoing the facade with its now-signature all-reflective-glass curtain wall. It then reopened in 1980 as the Grand Hyatt New York.

Several architectural critics had long denounced the hotel revamp, and the addition of a restaurant that hovers above the sidewalk on 42nd Street, as a prime example of negative development in New York.

Construction on the new building is expected to cost US$3 billion. It will include 500 rooms for the Grand Hyatt New York and state-of-the-art office space. Major transit upgrades could also come with the development, enhancing the pedestrian experience near Grand Central and offering better circulation and connectivity to the currently-congested subway beneath it. A new entrance has also been discussed.

No architect has been chosen for the design project yet, though the development team aims to announce one soon. When complete, the new structure will join a handful of other commercial office towers in the area that have popped up since the 2017 rezoning in Midtown East. Progress on One Vanderbilt by Kohn Pedersen Fox, Tower Fifth by Gensler and Adamson Associates Architects, and JP Morgan Chase’s new headquarters by Foster + Partners is already underway.

Air rights purchased from the Grand Central Terminal site in 2016 will allow the new development on the site of the Grand Hyatt Hotel to rise to skyscraper levels. The site is owned by the Empire State Development Corp., so developers will also need to secure approvals from city and state officials.

For more on this story go to The Architect’s Newspaper and Patch.