Archinect - News

The dispute over the Chrysler Building’s future just got even murkier

2024-10-23T17:33:00-04:00

Several local New York outlets have reported an update on the financial dispute between the Chrysler Building’s owner-operator RFR and The Cooper Union, which has held the land use rights to its lot since 1902.

The Austrian-based developer purchased William Van Alen’s landmarked design for $150 million in 2019 and is now being threatened with eviction by the college after reportedly not paying rent since May. RFR in turn filed a lawsuit last month, claiming "an improper and fatally defective eviction proceeding" on the part of Cooper Union.

The ground rent is now expected to increase to $41 million by 2028, adding to the challenges posed by its inability to retain tenants because of poor cell phone reception and unsanitary taps. The suit also claims Cooper Union's reaction to student-led anti-war protests this past year has led others to withdraw. The college has since called these claims "irrelevant, scandalous, and prejudicial.”

Developer behind SHoP-designed The Brooklyn Tower is facing foreclosure on $240 million loan

2024-04-04T12:20:00-04:00

Michael Stern, the developer of SHoP’s new The Brooklyn Tower (also known by its address at 9 Dekalb Avenue), is facing foreclosure over a failure to pay a $240 million loan that was extended by Silverstein Properties in 2019 to complete the 93-story project, according to reports from The Real Deal.

As TDR pointed out, Stern is also responsible for 111 West 57th Street, which has had issues with cost overruns and other legal setbacks.

Stern, a veteran of the city’s high-stakes recent luxury market, is known for making huge bets on his projects. Speaking for a 2020 Financial Times profile, FXCollaborative’s Daniel Kaplan said of his approach, “He’s commissioned some very good architecture. The thing that’s really interesting about him is that all the things people say you can’t do — or you can’t do for the money — he says, ‘Forget it!’”

The tower, which stands as Brookly...

China will build replacement for Gensler soccer stadium design in Guangzhou following Evergrande debt scramble

2024-03-19T11:51:00-04:00

Chinese state-owned construction contractor will build China’s largest soccer park in Guangzhou on the site where struggling Chinese property developer China Evergrande Group was supposed to build its soccer stadium. China Construction Fourth Engineering Division won the engineering procurement construction contract to build the Guangzhou Football Park with a CNY2.4 billion (USD328 million) bid, the unit of China State Construction Engineering announced on its official WeChat account yesterday.

The site was originally meant for a 100,000-seat stadium designed by Gensler. Evergrande, the developer now embroiled in a Lehman Brothers-like freefall, had already begun construction before the project was halted and eventually taken over by the government in 2021. The new design from the Guangdong Architectural Design and Research Institute has a reduced capacity of 73.000, making it still the largest soccer-only stadium in China.

Previously on Archinect: One of China's largest property developers is roiled in a Lehman-esque debt spiral

The estimated cost of the original design it replaces was $1.7 billion. Gensler, meanwhile, has begun preliminary work assessing the potential for a new stadium on the site of a disused Westfield shopping center in its hometown of San Francisco.

LA City Council orders graffiti removal on infamous unfinished Oceanwide Plaza towers

2024-02-12T13:33:00-05:00

City Council Members in Los Angeles have issued a mandate to owners of the graffiti-tagged Oceanview Plaza development in Downtown to remove the artwork weeks after its unfinished exterior became a national news item and the latest flash point in a debate over the citywide housing crisis that has lingered for a number of years.

By a vote of 14-0, Council Members approved Kevin de León’s motion calling for the city to foot the bill for cleaning up the stalled $1 billion towers if China-based developer Oceanwide fails to meet their February 17th deadline for removal. (CoStar first reported on the motion this weekend h/t Bizow.com.)

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Chop ‘em Down Films (@chopemdownfilms)

The internet sensation was covered in tags last month by artists apparently inspired by an early December operation in downtown Miami and able to bypass the security detail on site, which has been embroiled in a payment dispute with developers since last ye...

David Chipperfield's Elbtower project halts construction over payment dispute in Hamburg

2023-11-07T12:19:00-05:00

Reuters is reporting that construction on the forthcoming 64-story Elbtower Tower project in Hamburg, Germany, from David Chipperfield Architects has been halted over a payment dispute between its client Signa and a local builder.

The news came last week after more than two years of construction. Work was halted at exactly 100 meters (or 330 feet), which is under half the 245-meter (803-foot) anticipated height of the design for which Chipperfield won the 2018 international competition. The tower was expected to open in 2026, with a 188-room NOBU hotel and restaurant concept and a final price tag of €950 million ($1.015 billion). Once erected, it will become the tallest building in Germany outside of Frankfurt.

Signa’s CEO Timo Herzberg nevertheless posted to LinkedIn that he remains confident in the eventual realization of “Hamburg's future landmark,” Reuters reported. (Signa also operates the Chrysler Building in New York City.)

Previously on Archinect: David Chipperfield wins El...

Google scraps $15 billion Silicon Valley development deal with Lendlease

2023-11-06T12:28:00-05:00

Google has scrapped a $15 billion development deal that would have benefitted California’s Silicon Valley with new modern office parks, affordable housing, and mixed-use districts, according to reports published by CNN and Reuters late Friday.

The deals struck with Australian multinational Lendlease cover planned developments in and around Santa Clara County, California, including Sunnyvale and three others in San Jose and Mountain View. Google had previously announced its plans to reduce its company size by about 6% at the beginning of the year.

Both Lendlease and Google had released statements expressing their continued pursuit of the projects in April when the San Jose Downtown West development’s start of construction was put on hold indefinitely. Lendlease now says the four-year-old deal is no longer “mutually beneficial given current market conditions.”

The news strikes a major blow to the faltering...

Milwaukee's Ascent tower developer on its instant impact and the future of mass timber

2022-10-19T17:24:00-04:00

“We keep amassing this incredible pool of knowledge. It would be crazy to do all of that research and development and not scale it.”

New Land Enterprises (the developers behind Korb + Associates' record-setting Ascent tower design) managing director Tim Gokhman sat down recently to discuss the bellwether project with the Urban Land Institute (ULI). He told Milwaukee native Alby Gallun that the selection of the materials was driven perhaps unsurprisingly by aesthetics and marketing considerations, but that its ability to reduce on-site labor costs and the speed of the construction timeline were also deciding factors along with its proven sustainability and performance metrics.

Gokham said he thinks the burgeoning material can eventually be used up to a height of "30 to 40 stories" and stated that its biggest obstacle (at least for now) is insurance rates driven by the misconstrued risk of fire and water damage. “It is temporary,” he said finally, inferencing the need for further research into its structural capabilities. “The only reason I think why the insurance rates are high is because there aren’t enough data ...

Evan Jahn on the Thompson Center sale, office design, and continuing his father’s legacy

2022-07-30T09:00:00-04:00

It’s our duty to give them our perspective, but it always ends up being a collaboration between what our ideas and knowledge are, and what their vision is. I would be doing anyone in development a disservice if we didn’t propose and push for something that is greater than what initially is the expectation. Like many things in life, you think you can run a mile this fast, and then someone challenges you to run a little bit faster and you figure out you can. You’re always moving the bar.

The younger Jahn, now president of the firm his late father established, spoke with TRD about the recently-announced sale of Helmut Jahn's most famous work, commenting that the 37-year-old Thompson Center would be “enhanced to a level and expectation of a 21st-century office” before shutting down speculation about a potential new high-rise being constructed above it. He also mentioned some of the post-pandemic challenges his firm and others designing office spaces are facing and said that working with a well-versed client like Google presents, for him, a career-defining prospect.

“They’re beyond a bellwether. They’re really almost setting a new precedent in how they’re defining the workplace, with their projects in multiple areas,” he said. “They’re really trying to reconceptualize this 21st-century hybrid work environment.”

Designer and developer Abigail Coover reinterprets 'the formula for the typical Brooklyn condo' with House Offset

2021-12-07T13:02:00-05:00

Located in South Slope, Brooklyn, House Offset is a residential remodel that underwent a recent renovation with a focus on enhancing both interior and exterior architectural details as well as "preserving much of the exterior as a nod to adjacent residences and the traditional New York City townhouse typology." Beyond this, what makes the project stand out, however, is the designer responsible for the renovation is also its developer.

Abigail Coover, founder and principal of Overlay Office, started her practice in 2019. With over 18 years of experience as an architectural designer and project manager, she has helped lead projects in major cities such as New York and San Francisco. We connected with Coover to learn more about the project and her experience as both designer and developer.

House Offset model. Image courtesy of Overlay Office

Being both developer and designer allowed us to reinterpret the formula for the typical Brooklyn condo conversion project through the creative u...