Central Park Tower

Central Park Tower, also known as the Nordstrom Tower, is a residential supertall skyscraper along Billionaires' Row on 57th Street in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. Designed by Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture, the building rises and is the second-tallest skyscraper in the United States and the Western Hemisphere, the 13th tallest building in the world, the tallest residential building in the world, and the tallest building outside Asia by roof height.
Central Park Tower was developed by Extell Development Company and Shanghai Municipal Investment Group. The lowest floors of the building contain a large Nordstrom store, the first in New York City. The eastern portion of the tower contains a cantilever above the Art Students League of New York's building at 215 West 57th Street, intended to maximize views of nearby Central Park. The residential portion of the tower contains 179 condominiums. In total, Central Park Tower cost $3 billion to construct.
The site of Central Park Tower was formerly occupied by two buildings at 225 West 57th Street and 1780 Broadway, which were demolished in 2011–2012. Despite uncertainty about the final design and complications relating to the tower's financing, excavations at the site started in May 2014, and actual construction started in February 2015. There were several incidents and controversies during the building's construction, including a controversy over the tower's cantilever and the death of a security guard. The building topped out during September 2019, with a projected completion date of 2021.
Site.
Central Park Tower is in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City, just south of Columbus Circle, on the east side of Broadway between 57th Street to the south and 58th Street to the north. The northwestern corner of the building abuts 1790 Broadway, while the southwestern corner is adjacent to 1776 Broadway. Central Park Tower is also near 240 Central Park South and 220 Central Park South to the north; the American Fine Arts Society (also known as the Art Students League of New York building) and Osborne Apartments to the east; and 224 West 57th Street and the American Society of Civil Engineers' Society House to the south.
Central Park Tower is one of several major developments around 57th Street and Central Park that are collectively dubbed Billionaires' Row by the media. Other buildings along Billionaires' Row include 432 Park Avenue four blocks east, 111 West 57th Street and One57 one block east, and the adjacent 220 Central Park South.
Former buildings.
In the 20th century, the area was part of Manhattan's "Automobile Row", a stretch of Broadway extending mainly between Times Square at 42nd Street and Sherman Square at 72nd Street. The Hard Rock Cafe and Broadway Dance Center occupied the structure at 221 West 57th Street before that building was purchased by Central Park Tower's developer, the Extell Development Company, in 2006.
On the western side of the building's base is the facade of the 12-story building at 1780 Broadway, which formerly contained the B. F. Goodrich Company showroom. There was also an 8-story building at 225 West 57th Street, which contained the Stoddard-Dayton showroom. Both structures were built in 1909, to designs by Howard Van Doren Shaw. 1780 Broadway was one of the most visible buildings on Automobile Row because of the site's elevated topography, and was leased to various automotive firms during the early 20th century. Goodrich came to own both 1780 Broadway and 225 West 57th Street, but by the time the company sold the structures in 1928, they were collectively called the "Goodrich Building". A single-story annex was built for the Lincoln Art Theatre in 1962–1964, and the Goodrich Building became a supermarket in the 1990s before being acquired by Extell in 2006.
Design.
Central Park Tower was developed jointly by Extell and Shanghai Municipal Investment Group. It was designed by Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture. WSP Global was the structural engineer for the project, while Lendlease was the main contractor.
Central Park Tower has 98 habitable floors, Its tallest habitable story is high. The roof is above ground level. This makes Central Park Tower the tallest primarily residential building in the world; the much taller Burj Khalifa has 900 residential units, but is mixed-use. Central Park Tower is also the second-tallest skyscraper in the United States and the Western Hemisphere, the 13th tallest building in the world, and the tallest building outside Asia by roof height. Due to its high slenderness ratio, the building has been characterized as part of a new breed of New York City "pencil towers".
Facade.
The facade of Central Park Tower was designed by James Carpenter Design Associates and Permasteelisa Group. According to Gill and Smith, the glass cladding was intended to help the tower fit into the skyline.
Main structure.
The base of the tower along 57th and 58th Streets is made of glass, arranged into fluted panels that are insulated and laminated. The panels are installed in a serpentine "wave" pattern. These glass panels have a total combined surface area of . The panels are set within aluminum frames and locked together with steel plates, fitting between the concrete floor slabs on each level.
The upper stories' facade is mostly a curtain wall made of aluminum and glass. The curtain wall is subdivided vertically by stainless steel "fins" that are arranged similarly to pinstripes; they resemble mullions but do not project from the facade. The spandrels between each floor are also clad with stainless steel. According to Permasteelisa, of glass curtain wall was used on the upper floors.
1780 Broadway.
The facade of 1780 Broadway, a New York City designated landmark, is preserved at the base of the tower on Broadway. The landmark facade consists of one bay of windows on either side of a wide central bay. The lowest two floors of 1780 Broadway are clad with granite and topped by a granite cornice. The central window opening of the second floor is flanked by granite columns, while the outer bays contain trimmed rectangular window frames with carved bands. On each of the third through 11th floors, the central bay contains four windows within a granite frame, with a brick surround and single window on either side. There is a small cornice above the central bay on the third floor, and a sill above the 11th floor of the landmark facade. The 12th floor is clad with brick and contains a decorative balcony in the central bay.
Structural features.
In order to maximize views of Central Park, whose southern border is one block north, Extell built a cantilever extending from the eastern side of the tower. The cantilever starts roughly above the Art Students League of New York's building at 215 West 57th Street, and covers roughly one third of the space above the Art Students League building. Without the cantilever, Vornado Realty Trust's under-construction 220 Central Park South would have blocked the lowest of the tower. In conjunction with a 2013 agreement with Vornado that involved shifting 220 Central Park South slightly to the west, this gave Central Park Tower direct views of Central Park. Atop the building is a weighting system to balance the building against the wind.
Interior.
The building has a gross floor area of . The first seven floors of the tower are anchored by New York City's first Nordstrom department store. Floors eight to twelve house amenity spaces for residents. There are eleven elevators serving the upper floors. These elevators, developed by Otis Worldwide, travel . The entrance for Nordstrom is on 57th Street while the residents' entrance is on 58th Street.
Condominiums.
The building contains 179 condominiums starting on the 32nd floor. Each unit has between two and eight bedrooms, with between of floor area. The average apartment spans . As indicated by offering plans in 2017, the cheapest apartment was a $1.5 million studio, while twenty of the largest units were being sold at over $60 million each. A triplex penthouse at the top of the building spans across the 129th through 131st floors. This penthouse contains its own gym, ballroom, library, and observatory; the penthouse's price has not been publicly disclosed.
The interiors of the building's condominiums were designed by Rottet Studio. The units have open layouts and floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking Central Park or other nearby structures. Interior features include Miele and Sub-Zero appliances, custom cabinetry, and white oak floors.
Amenities.
There are of amenities on the 8th through 12th floors. On the 14th floor, the building features the “Central Park Club” with a lounge, theater, conference room, play area, and tween lounge. A landscaped terrace designed by HMWhite contains an outdoor pool with pergolas and trellises, a central lawn, and two gardens. On the 16th floor, there is an indoor pool, exercise room, spa, gym, basketball court and children's playroom.
There is also a three-floor private club named "The 100th Floor" near the building's apex, marketed as the highest private club in the world. The space contains a 126-person ballroom, a cigar bar, and a private dining room.
Nordstrom.
A Nordstrom department store occupies roughly of the building's first five floors as well as two basement levels. The store spans in total, including space at 5 Columbus Circle and 1776 Broadway. The Nordstrom location has an open plan for its floors, as well as ceilings. The floors are lit by the wavy glass facades of the base at 57th and 58th Streets. Other design features include halo reveals around each column, railings wrapping around corners, and a terracotta wall near the elevators that resemble the wavy facade. The store also contains six bars and restaurants, including two operated by celebrity chef Tom Douglas.
History.
Planning.
Land acquisition.
Extell started its land acquisition for what would become the Central Park Tower in mid-2005. Extell purchased 221 West 57th Street and a neighboring lot for $67.5 million, yielding over of buildable space. That September, Extell served one of 221 West 57th Street's occupants, the Broadway Dance Center, a notice of default for operating without the required public assembly permit. Extell also revoked the Center's use of the building's internal staircases due to theft concerns and offered the Center $1 million to move to a new home on 55th Street. Extell purchased of air rights from the Art Students League of New York in early 2006 for $23.1 million, and later paid the Art Students League another $31.8 million for of air rights.
Further air rights purchases followed in 2006 and 2007. This included of air rights above the Osborne Apartments on 205 West 57th Street, in January 2006; another of air rights from the Saint Thomas Choir School at 202 West 58th Street, in November 2006; and of air rights from the 13-story apartment building at 200 West 58th Street, in January 2007. In addition, Extell gained of development rights from the purchase of 1780 Broadway and two contiguous properties, and of development rights from the purchase of a plot of 58th Street, in two separate 2006 purchases. Combined, these purchases allowed a building with up to of floor area.
In mid-2012, Extell purchased the neighboring building at 223 West 58th Street for $25 million. In July 2013, Extell paid $25 million for the lot at 232 West 58th Street, adding another of development rights, and thus completing the site. That October, Extell purchased of air rights from the Atlantic Development Group.
Attempted preservation of existing structures.
The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) attempted to protect 225 West 57th Street and the neighboring 1780 Broadway in 2009, after having unsuccessfully attempted to designate the structures as city landmarks in 1994. After Extell and New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn pushed back, the LPC dropped its proposal to designate 225 West 57th Street as a landmark. In an LPC hearing, almost all parties except for the Real Estate Board of New York supported designating 1780 Broadway as a landmark. However, the proposed designation of 225 West 57th Street received both significant support and opposition: the American Institute of Architects, New York State Assembly member Richard N. Gottfried, and the Landmarks Preservation Council of Illinois spoke in favor of that building's designation while City Council members Melinda Katz, Daniel Garodnick, and Jessica Lappin spoke against landmark status.
On November 10, 2009, the LPC voted 6–3 to preserve 1780 Broadway's facade and tear down everything else. The three dissenting members of the LPC had wanted 225 West 57th Street to be preserved as well. Preservation groups like the Historic Districts Council and New York Landmarks Conservancy expressed dissatisfaction that City Council members had influenced the decision by saying they would veto any LPC designation for the properties if 225 West 57th Street was protected. The last tenant of 1780 Broadway moved out of that building in April 2011. Extell had demolished 225 West 57th Street in 2011, and destroyed the interiors of 1780 Broadway at the end of 2012.
Construction.
Early construction.
By mid-2012, Nordstrom committed to occupying at the base of Extell's proposed tower, paying a $102.5 million down payment for the first five floors and the two basement floors. At the end of 2012, Extell revealed that Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill would design the tower and that it would rise to become the second-tallest building in New York City. Adrian Smith's firm, which had been recommended by Nordstrom, beat out other contenders for the design including Herzog & de Meuron, SHoP Architects, Jean Nouvel, Foster and Partners, and Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners. At the time, the building was expected to rise , open in 2018, and contain a hotel on the seventh through twelfth floors. By November 2013, Extell had demolished all the previous buildings on the site.
The company began excavating the building's deep foundations in May 2014. A new design for the tower was leaked in July 2014 that revealed a tower with a spire reaching , just a foot shy of One World Trade Center's pinnacle. After nearly a year of excavation, the building's concrete foundation was poured in February 2015. New renderings were revealed on April 20, 2015, showing a roof height of and an architectural height of with the spire. However, new permits filed several months later showed the building without a spire but increased the roof height to . At the same time, the building's official name of "Central Park Tower" was unveiled and the completion date was pushed back to 2019. The building's tower crane was installed in July 2015 and the structure reached street level by the end of September. The structural steel for Nordstrom's retail base was complete by the middle of 2016.
Financing difficulties.
Extell took out a $300 million mortgage from The Blackstone Group on the land in mid-2012. The new mortgage allowed Extell to repay a $250 million loan from HSBC on the site's existing properties. In June 2016, Extell announced it were seeking to raise $190 million in financing for the tower from foreign investors through the EB-5 visa program. The company had previously raised $400 million by selling the retail portion to Nordstrom and another $300 million by issuing bonds on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange. Around the same time, Extell also brought in the Shanghai Municipal Investment Group (SMI) as an additional equity investor for roughly $300 million. Though the Blackstone loan had faced maturation in August 2016, Extell used the extra cash to repay $50 million of the loan and extend the maturity on the remainder, to December 9, 2016.
Even after the additional capital was secured, Extell still needed to receive a loan of roughly $1 billion by May 2017, or SMI could exercise a put option to force Extell to repay SMI's equity investment with interest. Additionally, the interest rate on Extell's bonds on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange rose from 6% to 16%, effectively turning them into junk bonds. If Extell defaulted on Blackstone's loan, its interest rate would increase from 8% to 14%, but Blackstone was only willing to grant Extell a one-week extension on its land loan to December 17. The day the land loan was due, Extell closed a new $235 million bridge loan with JPMorgan Chase and hedge funds Fortress Investment Group and Baupost Group in order to repay Blackstone.
By March 2017, Extell disclosed that it had spent $939 million on the development of the tower since 2014, including over $300 million in 2016 alone. The tower's completion date was also pushed back another year to November 2020. At the same time, Nordstrom invested another $25 million, with a put option that allowed the company to force Extell to repurchase the store space if it was not ready by December 2018. A further $168 million came from EB-5 investors. In May 2017, SMI changed the terms for its equity investment, so that Extell could keep looking for a construction loan until the end of 2017. That June, Israeli bondholders became concerned that Extell would be unable to meet its bond obligations as it held only $120 million in cash, still had not closed a construction loan, and still had its bonds classified as junk bonds with a 13% interest rate. A month later, over 40 private and institutional bondholders met to discuss whether to force early repayment on the bonds. Extell was scheduled to repay $180 million in December 2018 but investors were worried that the company could not raise the cash, as the declining luxury market had made the unit pricing unrealistic.
Following the bondholder's meeting, Extell signed a term sheet for a $900 million construction loan with JPMorgan Chase in August 2017. That same month, an Israeli bond rating agency downgraded the credit ratings for all of Extell's bonds after the company revealed it had just $36 million in cash on hand. Extell stated that it intended to close on the loan with JPMorgan before the end of the year, but the cash on hand would not be able to sustain construction through 2018 without a loan. SMI also agreed to push back the deadline on their put option for a third time, from December 2017 to June 2018. At the end of 2017, Extell announced it closed on $900 million in construction financing from JPMorgan Chase and an additional $235 million preferred equity investment from a hedge fund. The preferred equity carried an interest rate of 11% while the senior loan carried the high rate of Libor plus 4.5%. JPMorgan required repayment of the loan by December 2021 and also stipulated that Extell must sell $500 million worth of apartments by December 2020 or face default. In March 2018, Extell announced they would be selling 17% of the equity in the tower to a group of investors for $107 million, sparking another downgrade of Extell's bonds.
Completion.
At the end of May 2017, Extell received approval to begin sales at Central Park Tower, with a total targeted $4.02 billion sellout for the project's 179 condominiums. The average unit price of $22.5 million was twice as much as the average sales price for a top New York City luxury apartment. Extell hoped to sell 20 of the units for more than $60 million a piece, including a $95 million penthouse. The first glass was installed on the building in September 2017 when the building was roughly a third of the way to its peak. The tower reached the mark in the spring of 2018 and was approximately tall by the end of the year. In October 2018, Extell officially launched sales at the project.
By the end of 2018, Extell had spent $1.7 billion on construction of the tower and expected to spend another $1.3 billion before the building opened. This total project cost of $3 billion was over $1 billion higher than the $1.9 billion that Extell expected construction to cost in 2016. Extell also increased the projected sellout of the building's condominiums to $4.5 billion or $7,450 per square foot, up from projections of $4.02 billion in May 2017 and higher even than the $4.4 billion in sales Extell expected in 2016. The company also unveiled new buyer's incentives, offering to waive between three and five years of common charges and pay 50% of broker's commissions. In interviews in 2019, Extell founder Gary Barnett said that condominiums were not selling as quickly as at Extell's previous One57 development during the early 2010s, when there were no other luxury developments nearby. Barrett signaled an openness to discounting units to increase sales in addition to the existing buyer's incentives. While Barnett did not disclose sales numbers, he said that half of the buyers would be "English speakers" and the other half would be foreign buyers.
Central Park Tower surpassed 432 Park Avenue in height during March 2019, reaching . Two months later, the building's first condominiums were publicly listed for sale. The tower reached over by the end of July 2019, surpassing Willis Tower in Chicago. Central Park Tower topped out on September 17, 2019, the same day as One Vanderbilt. By the end of the year, the building's glass curtain wall had been almost completely installed. The Nordstrom store was the first part of the Central Park Tower to be finished, opening on October 24, 2019. Construction was temporarily halted in March 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic in New York City. By late 2020, the construction crane was being disassembled, and the first residents started moving into Central Park Tower. While some media sources reported that Central Park Tower was completed by the end of 2020, finishes were still being applied through 2021, and an official completion had not been announced. In January 2021, the project received a $380 million mezzanine loan from Sail Harbor Capital and Baupost Group, with a 14 percent interest rate and maturity at the end of 2021.
Incidents and controversies.
Art Students League cantilever controversy.
The cantilever over the Art Students League of New York's building at 215 West 57th Street was controversial. In October 2013, Manhattan Community Board 5 voted against allowing the cantilever, although the vote was merely advisory and final power over the decision rested with the LPC. Weeks later, the LPC approved the air rights sale and cantilever in a 6-1 vote. At the same meeting, Extell revealed a revised design which would rise tall. In February 2014, the Art Students League also approved the deal in a 1,342-227 vote among all members despite opposition from several third parties including the Municipal Art Society. Afterwards, over 100 members of the Art Students League filed suit against Extell and the Art Students League organization itself to attempt to stop the air rights sale, but the lawsuit was dismissed in mid-2014.
In January 2016, three hundred members of the League sued the League's leadership, claiming that instructions on how to vote on the sale were misleading and that the publicized voting procedure was not followed correctly. According to the lawsuit, materials distributed by the League's leadership indicated that abstaining from voting would count the same as a "no" vote which allegedly led many members not to vote on the issue. If non-voting members' decisions were counted as "no" votes, the tally should have been 2,603–1,342 against the air rights sale. The second lawsuit was dismissed through summary judgment when a judge ruled that the League's leadership had acted in good faith while interpreting the League's by-laws regarding voting procedures. An appeals court upheld the decision in March 2016, as construction had progressed to a point where it could not be undone without causing undue hardship that would cost Extell more than $200 million.
Construction incidents.
On July 12, 2017, a crate containing window panes fell from the building's 16th floor after a ramp connecting the construction hoist to the building collapsed. The New York City Fire Department closed 58th Street for the rest of the day to investigate.
On December 18, 2019, ice falling from Central Park Tower injured a pedestrian, who required hospitalization. Multiple blocks near the building were closed to traffic and pedestrians by the Department of Emergency Management, and the Department of Buildings stopped construction on the building indefinitely. The falling ice was considered problematic because ice sliding down a flat facade, such as that of Central Park Tower, could reach a maximum speed of from a height of as little as 15 stories.
Security guard death.
On May 26, 2018, a teamster attempted to move a piece of ducting with a forklift and accidentally hit a glass panel at the ground floor. The panel tipped over on top of 67-year-old security guard Harry Ramnauth. A construction worker at the scene ended up fracturing his right foot when he tried to rescue Ramnauth. Although Emergency medical technicians arrived eleven minutes after the incident, Ramnauth was pronounced dead at the hospital, and an autopsy listed his cause of death as blunt force trauma of the neck and torso. After the incident, the New York City Department of Buildings ordered a temporary halt to construction, though work soon resumed. Ramnauth's family also sued Extell, contractor Pinnacle Industries, and the developer's insurer AIG for the pain and suffering Ramnauth endured between the time the glass panel fell on him and when he lost consciousness six to eight minutes later. The family proposed a $4.75 million settlement, but Extell initially refused. In January 2020, Lendlease Group, contractor Pinnacle Industries, and Extell paid the guard's family $1.25 million to settle the family's wrongful death claim.
Following an investigation by the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), both Lendlease and subcontractor Permasteelisa North America were cited and fined $12,934 each. According to OSHA, the contractors failed to keep the construction site's aisles and passageways clear so that material handling equipment or employees could move freely, leading to Ramnauth's death. Both contractors filed disputes with OSHA's findings and appealed the fines. Lendlease was also fined $25,000 by the New York City Office of Administration Trials and Hearings for failing to adequately safeguard the construction site. In 2020, Lendlease filed a lawsuit seeking to overturn the City's findings, both because Ramnauth was not considered a member of the public and because the city did not conduct an investigation until three days after the incident.