Posted on 02/16/2024 10:48:03 AM PST by dennisw
The developer that knocked down a landmark hotel opposite Madison Square Garden may build a temporary recreational space that could include tennis and basketball courts after scrapping plans for a shiny new skyscraper — a sign of the “office apocalypse” in the commercial real estate market.
Vornado Realty Trust had initially planned to build a 56-story, 2.7 million-square-foot office tower on the site where the Hotel Pennsylvania once stood at 15 Penn Plaza. The century-old building in the Central Business District (CBD) near Penn Station was demolished last year.
However, demand for commercial office space has been slow to recover in the post-COVID age of hybrid work, while financing options are limited against the backdrop of high interest rates.
“We have a CBD office apocalypse involving the work-from-home threat and the total blacklisting of offices in the capital markets,” Vornado CEO Steven Roth told investors on an earnings call earlier this week.
Vornado Realty Trust is mulling a plan to build tennis courts for the US Open in Midtown Manhattan.
Vornado released a brochure with renderings that turn the site on Seventh Avenue between West 32nd and 33rd streets into an 80,000-square-foot mixed-use space. The area could be used to set up temporary tennis courts for possible US Open matches, basketball courts in the shadow of the Knicks’ home, Fashion Week tents, and a digital billboard that rises 10 stories.
Vornado released a brochure with renderings that turn the site on Seventh Avenue between West 32nd and 33rd streets into an 80,000-square-foot mixed-use space. The area could be used to set up temporary tennis courts for possible US Open matches, basketball courts in the shadow of the Knicks’ home, Fashion Week tents, and a digital billboard that rises 10 stories.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
So what happened to Pennsylvania 6-5000?
Perhaps the developer is afraid of being indicted in the future for a ‘loan fraud’ case that has no apparent victims.
Vornado should put in pickle ball courts, this is very popular these days. This would be for daytime use. Then starting when it gets dark outside, they open up the b-ball courts for Bill Clinton’s midnight basketball. For the youths. This will be a no guns, no knives zone.
I know the taxes will be lower on the tennis/ midnight basketball space. Than on a 56 story office tower that you can only fill 30%.
Numbers I’ve got by the dozen
Everyone’s uncle and cousin
But I can’t live without buzzin’
Pennsylvania Six, Five Thousand
I’ve got a sweety I know there
Someone who sets me aglow there
Gives me the sweetest “hello there”
Pennsylvania Six, Five Thousand
We don’t say “how are you”
And very seldom ask “what’s new?”
Instead we start and end each call with
“Baby confidentially I love you”
Covid taught a lot of non retail urban professional businesses that they don’t need massive amounts of office space in the modern technological era.
Our creepy establishment tears down everything beautiful just to put up soulless glass boxes. They use brutalist architecture to intimidate and depress the citizenry.
Have Adams subsidize the midnight basketball.
Sad. Glad for my few nights there. Room was tiny. History was huge. Set foot on the stage in memory of the Miller song.
Covid showed employers that working from home saves a ton of money.
1. Rent. Super expensive in NYC and other places.
2. Commute time. Lost time.
3. Productivity. You know who does what when they work from home.
4. Avoid litigation. No sex harassment or racism claims if on zoom and at home (u less it’s the New York Times).
So there will be a pivot from commercial rental to residential. Many of these empty commercial buildings will be converted into condominiums. This will flood the market and drive down residential values.
Likely looking at a 2009 style banking crisis soon.
I agree with all of your post except for the conversion.
The logistics are really bad for at least 90% of the commercial buildings.
—Many are old and are not up to code—just cheaper to tear them down....
—Not enough bathrooms for residential—that means major plumbing overhaul issues—there aren’t enough plumbers in the country to do all that work.
—Many buildings have too much interior space—residential needs windows.
—Why should anyone live in these high crime high cost cities again? Lol.
They are going all the way back to the 1600s—agriculture.
Knocking down local, state. regional & national landmarks- especially historic ones- is one of the many shames allowed to continue apace. It doesn’t always get the kind of pushback needed to save or refurbish them. It ranks right up there with watching farmland & rural spaces turned into strip malls, Dollar Generals & apartment complexes. These are the types of issues & stances that aren’t as obviously conservative as constitutional limited government & traditional values- until you really start to think about it. Central to being conservative is a respect for history, belief in strong cultural institutions & skepticism of liberal or radical change. Most nations conservative parties & organizations view a topic like this as central to their agenda. The more culture & history you allow to be knocked down, the less loyalty & respect people will have for it. We conservatives need to get on the ball & defend our history from the jackasses trying to knock it down 😉
It was New York Jake
The architects of the Hotel Pennsylvania ( McKim, Mead, and White) were the same architects of the original Pennsylvania Station across the street from the Hotel. Penn Station came first and the hotel a few years later. The exteriors showed similarities the architects employed. They also designed the giant United States Post Office building that remains on 8th Avenue and 9th Avenue between 31st and 33rd streets (which was orginally across 8th Ave from the original Pennsylvania Station.
I have a great black and white frame photo taken inside the original (now gone) Pennsylvania Station.
The current Penn Station sits underneath (below ground level) some high rise office buildings and Madison Square garden, between 7th and 8th avenues between 34th and 31st streets.
I am not surprised the old hotel lost it’s viablity to remain in business. Hotels have grown like mushrooms all over Manhattan in the past 5-10 years, in new modern buildings and older completely renovated buildings, with many is less tourist congested areas than around Penn Station. And, with so many Manhattan white collar workers still working from home post-covid, I can also understand the property owner not wanting to compete with a lot of already vacant office space.
I take it that you have not stayed at the Hotel Penn within the last three decades. Beautiful is not the word you would use if you had.
Wrong, it was a very beautiful building architecturally. It may have been run down, but that's what renovations are for. 
Not always. I'm sure you have some employers who have relocated to red states. Florida and Texas are becoming huge. While people are continuing to leave NYC.
There are some drawbacks to working from home.
I am very familiar with the Hotel Penn and there was nothing inspiring or esthetic about its design. It was a dull brown corrugated oppressive utilitarianian heap in of stone with two-thirds of its rooms opening onto nearly lightless interior shafts. One would never stop to gaze at its beauty, but only rush past to be somewhere else.
With government funding, a tent city might work.
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