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. 

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."

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 buildings and oriented towards the flow of traffic arriving from uptown. Inside the tower, tripled-height private lobbies work to draw in the public realm from the adjoining outdoor plaza area designed by Field Operations. Underneath the "dramatic" column-free lobby spaces, a unique structural solution begins to take hold.

"Building Two Manhattan West required a feat of extraordinary coordination among the design, engineering, and planning teams," explains Partner Julia Murphy. "While Two Manhattan West’s presence in the sky and at grade is rigorous and clearly defined, its most dramatic complexities lie underground."

The central core of the tower is supported by "mega-columns" that resolve its incapacity to touch solid bedrock completely. These columns are sculpted inward towards the core, which come wrapped in a wood finish and are aligned with the 13 subgrade spaces between each rail track in a way that also creates clearer sight lines for pedestrians above ground. The team's Structural Engineering Principal, Charles Besja, commented on this achievement, saying it worked to allow a "delicate dialogue between the private lobbies and the public plaza."

"The public realm is the heart of the master plan," Partner Ken Lewis adds. "The buildings are organized around a series of distinct plazas that invite diverse users to the development and form a vital pedestrian link between the Midtown business district, the Penn Station complex, and Hudson Yards."

The remaining master plan includes SOM's 23-story Pendry hotel tower and the 62-story Eugene residential component totaling 844 units. Two former industrial buildings at the site were rehabilitated to form Four and Five Manhattan West. Brookfield realized Two Manhattan West for approximately $2 billion. 

A competitor for Manhattan’s best new office, the project joins BIG’s 66-story The Spiral and the 60-story 270 Park Avenue design from Foster + Partners as one of perhaps the last tall midtown buildings to be delivered until the mid-2030s. 

SOM has also completed its restoration of the historic Lever House nearby on Park Avenue. As its counterpart, the Two Manhattan West project also targeted a LEED Gold certification through its completion.