2021 Awards for excellence in development gala winners
Excellence in development : Excellence in Hotel Development
Moxy Times Square – New York, NY
Developer: Lightstone
Architect: Stonehill & Taylor
Moxy Times Square was originally constructed as the landmarked Mills Hotel, a 1,900-key Single Room Occupancy (SRO) hotel dating back to 1907. Upon acquisition in 2014, the building operated as a Class B office. As the developer, Lightstone seized the opportunity to convert the property into the flexible, innovative flagship for Marriott’s Moxy hotel brand. The community board and Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) unanimously approved the property as being enlisted as a landmark as well as the proposed hotel redevelopment. The project brought together a team of collaborators that are unexpected for an affordable hotel but critical to its success: Yabu Pushelberg to design the guestrooms and lobby, Tao Group to cultivate the food and beverage program, and Rockwell Group to design the restaurants and bars. Upon arrival, today’s guests check in at a kiosk, self-check-in terminal (the first in the Marriott system), or mobile check-in, catering to the self-service mentality of today’s travelers. The second-floor lobby serves as the social heart of the hotel, anchored by Bar Moxy; unlike the traditional hotel lobby, the area is designed to be accommodating to locals and guests throughout their day – as are all the hotel’s restaurants, bars, and coworking spaces. Three meeting studios with retractable glass walls and modular furniture seamlessly transition from coworking during the day to cocktail lounge in the evening. One of the studios transforms each night to serve as a workshop for celebrity tattoo artist JonBoy. The rooftop bar Magic Hour (the largest indoor/outdoor hotel bar in NYC) is a carnivalesque terrace overlooking the Empire State Building and includes a rotating carousel seating area and a miniature golf course with colossal-size animals in flirty, witty poses. Guestrooms are inspired by the elegant yet functional simplicity of traditional Japanese ryokans, in which the room is designed to change throughout the day as its function changes. The approach results in accommodations such as furniture that is cleverly designed to hang on peg walls when not in use, as well as luxurious amenities like walk-in rain showers and plush beds. In recognition of sustainability, energy-efficient LED lighting design is utilized throughout hotel, as well water source heat pump design for energy-efficient HVAC. In its first two years of operations prior to COVID, the 612-key hotel achieved over 90 percent occupancy and nearly a $230 ADR, indexing over 100 percent against its competitive set. Moxy Times Square stands poised to welcome back New York City’s visitors and local revelers alike.
Excellence in development : Excellence in Affordable Housing
Beach Green Dunes II – Queens, NY
Developer: L+M Development Partners
Owners: BGN II Owners LLC and BGNII Housing Development Fund Corporation
Architect: Curtis + Ginsberg Architects LLP
Beach Green Dunes II is a mixed-use affordable rental housing project located in the Edgemere neighborhood of Far Rockaway, Queens. The eight-story building measures approximately 121,000 square feet and includes 127 fully occupied residential units that are affordable to low- and moderate-income households whose income does not exceed 100 percent of Area Median Income (AMI). The property also includes 49 residential parking spaces (covered and uncovered) on the ground floor; approximately 2,590 square feet of dry floodproofed commercial space – which will soon welcome a healthy cafe and market run by the non-profit The Campaign Against Hunger; secure bicycle storage; and a plaza and landscaped yard for passive recreational use. The 100 percent affordable housing development transformed a vacant city-owned beach-front property into a modern, resilient housing development. Located two blocks away from the Rockaway Beach Boardwalk, the building is designed to integrate resilient and sustainable features to protect against flood risk, optimize energy efficiency, and reduce residents’ utility costs. The building is located in a NYC Flood Zone 1 and thus is raised to exceed flood requirements – including wet and dry floodproofing to prevent flooding and promote quick recovery should it occur. The project employs a closed loop geothermal system for heating and cooling in addition to solar photovoltaic arrays to power common areas. Beach Green Dunes II is certified by the Passive Housing Institute for US standards and exceeds the 2015 Enterprise Green Communities standards. Construction was made possible through the Extremely Low & Low-Income Affordability (ELLA) program of the NYC Housing Development Corporation and the NYC Department of Housing Preservation and Development. Beach Green Dunes II truly stands as a testament to the successful integration of sustainable construction practices and community-based design.
Excellence in development : Excellence in Market-Rate Housing
Via 57 West – New York, NY
Owner: The Durst Organization
Architects: Bjarke Ingels Group (Design) and SLCE Architects (AoR)
An architecturally distinct residential building in West Midtown, VIA 57 West’s form creates what the developer deems a new typology – the “courtscraper” – combining the compactness, density, and intimacy of a classic courtyard building, with the airiness and the expansive views of a skyscraper. The most prominent feature of the tetrahedron structure is its courtyard that opens to the Hudson River, with residential unit balconies oriented toward the courtyard in an effort to foster a community and a “vertical neighborhood.” VIA includes 709 residential units, 42,000 square feet of amenities, 48,800 square feet of retail, a 285-car garage, and parking for 290 bicycles. Building amenities include a pool, fitness center, half-basketball court, game room, two lounges, a theatre, and a golf-simulation room. VIA committed to a higher standard of environmental sustainability, both in its design and throughout its construction, by ensuring the selection and handling of materials were respectful of environmental impacts in extraction, manufacture, shipping, installation, use, maintenance, and material afterlife. A trailblazer in the architectural rejuvenation of Manhattan’s West Side, Via 57 West still shines bright amongst its peers.
Excellence in development : Excellence in Institutional Development
The Stavros Niarchos Foundation-David Rockefeller River Campus at The Rockefeller University – New York, NY
Developer: The Rockefeller University
Architect: Rafael Viñoly Architects
In 2011, confronted with the challenge of an aging building stock and outdated laboratory facilities that limited the recruitment of talented scientists, the leadership of The Rockefeller University commissioned Rafael Viñoly Architects to develop a space plan and master plan that would accommodate future growth for the campus. The resulting River Campus plan preserves the campus’ beloved garden designed by renowned landscape architect Dan Kiley, promotes the historic character of the buildings bordering it, and provides broad, open floor plates for scientific research that maximize flexibility to modify each lab over time for greater ease in the expansion and contraction of research groups. By utilizing its air rights over the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Drive (FDR Drive), the University was able to preserve the character of the campus by expanding horizontally rather than vertically, and by creating a new site over the FDR Drive that facilitated the development of the Marie-Josée and Henry R. Kravis Research Building, a three-story building with flexible and forward-oriented large research floor plates concentrated in two floors. The University’s decision to maintain a low building profile enhances and preserves the integrity of the original landscape, by extending it out over the rooftop of the new laboratory building. The resultant low-rise Research Building, which is pursuing LEED Gold certification, unifies the campus architecturally from the east, minimizes intervention in the historic garden, and expands both campus and community amenities and green space. More than a research facility, the expansion represents a holistic expansion of the University’s campus with collaborative, convening, recreation, and dining amenities enjoyed by the full University population and also by the surrounding community. Additionally, a failed seawall along the East River was repaired, and the public esplanade between the building and the East River is enhanced with new landscaping, furnishings, lighting, and a sound barrier between the highway to provide a secure, safe, and resilient environment for the public realm. The Stavros Niarchos Foundation–David Rockefeller River Campus enhances scientific research, manages institutional growth, and the recruitment and retention of world class researchers, while simultaneously contributing to New York City’s leadership in fields of biomedical research and clinical care.
Excellence in development : Excellence in Civic Development
Moynihan Train Hall – New York, NY
Owner & Partners: NYS Empire State Development in a public-private partnership with: Vornado Realty Trust, The Related Companies, Skanska, the MTA, the Long Island Railroad, Amtrak, and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey
Architect: Skidmore, Owings & Merrill
The Moynihan Train Hall project expands Penn Station, the nation’s busiest train station, into the landmarked James A. Farley Post Office building to relieve crowding and improve passenger comfort and security. The $1.6 billion project restores the civic grandeur and dignified sense of arrival lost with the demolition of the original Penn Station in the 1960s and transforms the Farley Building into a modern, world-class transit hub with state-of-the-art technologies and customer amenities – an idea first proposed by the late United States Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan more than a quarter-century ago. The Train Hall expands Penn Station’s concourse space by 50 percent, adds 25,000 square feet of passenger waiting areas and increases Penn Station’s platform circulation by 37 percent. It reverses the dark, overcrowded experience of Penn Station through the introduction of a soaring, 92-foot high sky-lit atrium traversing the main boarding concourse for Amtrak and MTA Long Island Rail Road passengers, reminiscent of the original, sky-lit Penn Station. The Farley Building’s 200,000-square-foot stone facade, 700 windows, copper roof, steel trusses, and many other unique details have been fully restored all while the project is targeting LEED Silver certification in a new LEED for Transit category. The project’s innovative public-private partnership design-build delivery model helped ensure the project’s completion on time and on budget. In addition to improving Penn Station, Moynihan Train Hall also creates an important connection between Penn Station and the ongoing revitalization of Manhattan’s Far West Side, through its generous public spaces, inspiring public artwork, 730,000 square feet of new commercial office space (the future home to Facebook), and 120,000 square feet of planned shops and restaurants. Moynihan Train Hall triumphantly embraces its architectural history and reimagines the future of rail travel in one of the world’s greatest cities.
Excellence in development : Excellence in Office Development
One Vanderbilt – New York, NY
Developer: SL Green Realty Corp.
Architect: Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates
Standing at 1,401 feet tall and spanning 1.7 million square feet, One Vanderbilt is the tallest office tower in Midtown Manhattan and the second tallest office tower in New York City. The tower’s developer, SL Green Realty Corp., worked with the City of New York and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority to realize $220 million in public open space and transit infrastructure improvements in and around Grand Central Terminal—a transit hub that is one of the busiest, most crowded commuter and rail hubs along the eastern United States. One Vanderbilt fits into the city’s network of public transport perhaps more than any other building in the city, blending private enterprise and the public realm. The base of the building becomes part of the spatial sequence of Grand Central and a doorstep to the city, greeting thousands of commuters daily. Together, the integrated complex of below grade conditions offering connections to the terminal, the new East Side Access, and an active urban base, makes the project a 21st century successor to the Rockefeller Center. The building’s iconic design was created by Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates and follows the layered language of great New York towers such as the Chrysler and Empire State buildings. With 1.5 million square feet of Class A office space, the design accommodates a variety of floorplates (40,900 square feet to 16,150 square feet), including long-span podium floors and a 20-foot minimum planning dimension to respond to today’s market needs. One Vanderbilt also offers a 30,000-square-foot tenant-only amenity floor and will include an 11,000-square-foot restaurant. The building is topped with a 28,000-square-foot observatory with the second-highest outdoor deck in New York City. SL Green also prioritized sustainability with a $17 million investment in features to ensure the building maintains one of the lowest carbon footprints across similarly scaled buildings in the City. One Vanderbilt was built using steel rebar made of 90% recycled content, features cutting-edge technologies such as 1.2-MW cogeneration system, 50,000-gallon rainwater collection system and regulated insulation for heating and cooling through high-performance glazing. One Vanderbilt has received both LEED and WELL Platinum certifications. Nearly 20 years in the making, One Vanderbilt redefines the Manhattan skyline, transforms the modern workplace and reaffirms the future of New York City.
Excellence in development : Excellence in Repositioning or Redevelopment
Industry City – Brooklyn, NY
Developer: Industry City is a private entity that is a joint venture between Belvedere Capital, Jamestown and Angelo Gordon
Architect: S9 Architects
Industry City is a 35-acre, 16-building, six million-square-foot site located on the waterfront of Sunset Park, Brooklyn. Originally built between 1890-1910, Bush Terminal, now known as Industry City, was once a thriving intermodal warehouse distribution and manufacturing hub. In 2013, an ownership group consisting of Belvedere Capital, Jamestown and Angelo Gordon joined forces to begin the redevelopment of this massive site, which had suffered through 50 years of neglect and decay. Over the last seven years, the ownership group has invested over $400 million in deferred maintenance and tenant build outs, bringing the property back to life. Industry City is divided into two building clusters, the Finger Buildings (ten buildings totaling three million square feet) and the Waterfront Buildings (six buildings totaling three million square feet). The narrow dimensions of the Finger Buildings are ideal for small creative workshops and businesses that have helped create an ecosystem that has attracted larger tenants such as AECOM, Conde Nast, West Elm, WhatIf, Buck Design, and the Vera Institute. The waterfront buildings have significantly larger footprints allowing for tenants like Brooklyn Sports and Entertainment (180,000 square feet, including the Brooklyn Nets practice facility), Union Square Hospitality Group (70,000 square feet, including commissary kitchens and office) and Amazon/Wholefoods (25,000-square-foot grocery fulfillment center). The site also includes five acres of uniquely designed and landscaped courtyards that serve as open space available to the public. Today, Industry City is home to 550 businesses with 8,000 jobs and welcomes over 15,000 visitors every weekend to shop and experience a broad range of entertainment and beautifully landscaped green space. As the largest commercial-industrial redevelopment of its kind in the United States, Industry City is now an international model for privately financed urban adaptive reuse.
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