Jury Statement
Time Warner Center represents a positive resolution to the decades-long controversy over what to do about Columbus Circle, at the southwest corner of Central Park. This 2.8 million-square-foot (260,130 m2), mixed-use project has provided the city with a landmark worthy of its unique location, and with a hugely successful magnet for investment.
Development Team
Owner/Developer
The Related Companies, LP
New York, New York
www.related.com
Owners
Apollo Real Estate Advisors, LP
New York, New York
www.apollorealestate.com
Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group
Hong Kong
www.mandarin-oriental.com
Time Warner, Inc.
New York, New York
www.timewarner.com/corp
Jazz at Lincoln Center
New York, New York
www.jazzatlincolncenter.org
Architects
Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, LLP
New York, New York
www.som.com
Elkus Manfredi Architects, Ltd.
Boston, Massachusetts
www.elkus-manfredi.com
Brennan Beer Gorman Architects
New York, New York
www.bbg-bbgm.com
Ismael Leyva Architects, PC
New York, New York
www.ilarch.com
Rafael Viñoly Architects, PC
New York, New York
www.rvapc.com
Project Data
Web Sites
www.onecentralpark.com
www.shopsatcolumbuscircle.com
Site Area
3.4 acres (1.38 ha)
Facilities
2.8 million square feet (260,130 m2) total area
1.1 million square feet (102,190 m2) leasable office/studio/broadcast space
340,000 square feet (31,590 m2) leasable retail space
1,970 seats in three performance halls
201 residential condominiums
251 hotel keys
504 parking spaces
Land Uses
residential, hotel, retail, office/studio/broadcast, performance halls, parking
Completion Date
October 2004 |
Awards for Excellence: 2005 Winner
Time Warner Center
New York, New York
No single building complex since Rockefeller Center has had the opportunity to exert such a positive impact on New York City. In July 1998, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority selected the development team—a partnership of the Related Companies, LP, and Apollo Real Estate Advisors, LP—to redevelop the approximately 3.4-acre (1.38 ha) site of the demolished New York Coliseum on Columbus Circle in the heart of Manhattan. The development team put together a dynamic and synergistic mix of components, generous public spaces, and breathtaking views to capitalize on this exceptional location that is the gateway to midtown Manhattan, the Upper West Side, and Central Park. Time Warner Center is a city within a building more than it is a building within a city.
“I believe Time Warner Center will become the most important mixed-use development in New York City, creating a new cultural center that will deliver an unrivaled experience in which people will dine, shop, live, work, and be entertained in a unique and exciting complex at one of the world’s most visible and prominent locations,” says Kenneth A. Himmel, president and CEO of Related Urban Development. The uses include office and broadcast facilities occupied by Time Warner, multiple levels of retail space, destination specialty restaurants, condominium residences, a hotel (Mandarin Oriental), three performance halls totaling 1,970 seats and other facilities for Jazz at Lincoln Center, and one-of-a-kind public spaces.
Time Warner Center’s form and imagery are derived from the Manhattan street grid. A stone-and-glass podium houses seven stories of retail and studio space—in which the high level of people activity appears to mirror that going on outside on Broadway—topped by broadcasting studios and office space.
Set back on the base, a pair of office and residential towers culminate in luminous glass crowns 750 feet (229 m) above Columbus Circle. The main public entrance, a giant window, opens into a 150-foot-high (46 m) atrium that showcases the retail, restaurant, and entertainment space. The window opens the building to Central Park, so that visitors can experience the same dramatic views of the park that office tenants and residents enjoy. Additional contributions made to the public realm include space donated to Jazz at Lincoln Center, the rebuilding of a subway station, and a contribution to the $20 million landscaping makeover of Columbus Circle.
A creative ownership structure—a condominium regime in which each of seven owners has a fee interest in its condominium unit—helped finance the project. All project components are exceeding financial expectations. The Shops at Columbus Circle is realizing net rents of up to $450 per square foot ($4,844 per m2) and nearly every merchant is exceeding sales expectations. The hotel has already become the city’s rate leader. Most of the office/studio/broadcast space is occupied, primarily by Time Warner. And One Central Park—the residential component—is achieving sale prices of almost $2,500 per square foot ($27,000 per m2), with sales expected to exceed projections by 25 percent. In early 2005, all but ten of the 201 condominiums had been sold. |