Hudson Yards Manhattan Development Officially Opens

The huge Hudson Yards property development has been officially opened in Manhattan.

The $25 billion Hudson Yards private real estate project on the Far West Side of mid-Manhattan, was officially opened on March 15.

Hudson Yards has been hailed by its billionaire developers as a transformative venture that will bring at least 55,000 jobs, 4,000 apartments and a jolt of energy and enthusiasm to New York City as a whole.

The development, the product of at least a decade of planning, will eventually consist of 16 tall buildings. It is made possible by a massive platform built over the old storage yards of the Long Island Rail Road. In terms of square footage, Hudson Yards will be the largest private real estate development in the history of the US.

Among those structures already completed are four skyscrapers, transforming the city’s skyline on the Hudson River and nearly obscuring the iconic view of the Empire State Building, about one mile due east. Another prominent element that has been opened is a seven-story, 720,000-square-foot luxury shopping mall.

Plans for Hudson Yards began to take shape in the years after the 9/11 attacks in Lower Manhattan. The midtown area between 34th and 59th Streets had already overtaken the old financial district in size. By the middle of the first decade of the 21st century, however, there was growing concern within the ruling establishment about competition from London and other financial centres.

One of the few areas where expansion was possible in the already crowded business district was the Far West Side, the site of the old storage yards of the LIRR. The push for Hudson Yards accelerated after New York lost its bid for the 2012 Olympics, and thus the rationale for the plans for a new stadium on the Far West Side. Ground was broken for the project in 2012.

Hudson Yards follows ‘Billionaires Row’ on West 57th Street and numerous other luxury and high-end towers in Manhattan in the northern tip of Brooklyn.

Companies that plan to relocate from other sites to Hudson Yards were granted tax breaks, including $25 million for the gigantic BlackRock hedge fund, with $5.98 trillion under management, $14 million for WarnerMedia, and numerous others. While an estimated 430 ‘affordable’ apartments are included in Hudson Yards, overseas property investors are likely to need very deep pockets for most of the luxury apartments planned.