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SOM completes Two Manhattan West, marking a major milestone for corporate office design in NYC

2024-01-31T15:18:00-05:00

SOM has completed work on their Two Manhattan West tower project to culminate the shorter second half of its $4.5 billion mixed-use Manhattan West development in New York City.

The four-year construction effort yielded a total two million square feet of new office space that was built above active railroad tracks in what the firm describes as an "extraordinary" advancement of the methods used in urban design, structural engineering, and architecture.

Photo: Dave Burk © SOM

It joins SOM's already-completed One Manhattan West office tower and five other buildings at the eight-acre mixed-use site, which is being developed to over seven million square feet by Brookfield Properties. Design Principal Kim Van Holsbeke says it offers a "thriving new urban destination."

Photo: Dave Burk © SOM

By extending the urban fabric of the development west to its new boundary at Ninth Avenue and 31st Street, Two Manhattan West creates a new gateway to the neighborhood backed by the four smaller buildin...

New York selects six Empire Building Challenge partners to boost the state's energy efficiency

2022-10-10T09:00:00-04:00

New York Governor Kathy Hochul has just announced the addition of six new strategic partners to the $50 million Empire Building Challenge in aims of enhancing the state’s stock of energy-efficient buildings.

The newly-added partners will be tasked with developing "highly repeatable" solutions to reducing carbon emissions in the heating and hot water systems of roughly 5.6 million square feet of high-rise buildings statewide that are included in the Challenge.

Brookfield Properties and Tishman Speyer lead the groups included in the program’s expansion, which now covers some 125 million square feet of commercial and multifamily properties and over 1,500 units of housing. The new interests selected by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) include:

Amalgamated Housing Corporation, who will team with EN-POWER GROUP and Egg Geo on Tower I & Tower II, 3965 - 3975 Sedgwick Avenue in the Bronx.
Boston Properties, who pairs with Jaros, Baum, & Bolles Consulting...

Long-plagued Midtown office tower will be reborn as 660 Fifth Avenue: See new looks

2021-02-04T21:00:00-05:00

The office tower formerly known as 666 Fifth Avenue has shed both its superstitious address and its controversial connection to the Kushners. Brookfield Asset Management will undertake a $400 million overhaul of the 41-story Midton office tower. Designed by Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates, it will have a new glass facade and floor-to-ceiling windows, a new lobby and retail spaces, and new outdoor terraces when it’s completed in 2022.

First phase of Gensler's California Market Center overhaul in Los Angeles is complete

2020-03-17T12:36:00-04:00

A massive $170 million plan to overhaul the Gruen Associates-designed California Market Center (CMC) in Los Angeles has taken a step forward as developers Brookfield Properties have announced completion of the first phase of the project.

Views of the overall complex, which was originally designed by Norma Merrick Sklarek while she worked at Victor Gruen's office in the 1960s, (top) and of the renovated sky bridges linking the complex (bottom). Image courtesy of Brookfield Partners / Gensler.

In press release announcing the update to the 1.85 million-square-foot project, the developers write that a top-to-bottom overhaul of a 600,000-square-foot, 13-story building contained within the complex has been completed. The overhaul, which is designed by Gensler, will reposition the four-building, block-sized complex into a social and business node for fashion and technology companies. The complex was originally designed in the 1960s as a hub for clothing manufacturer based in Downtown Los A...