Dive Brief:

• The owners of New York City's Grand Central Station have settled a lawsuit — for an undisclosed sum — with the developers of a $1 billion mixed use tower they plan to build across the street from the landmark rail terminal, allowing construction to move forward, according to The New York Times.
• Midtown TDR Ventures attempted to scuttle SL Green's plans for the 1,401-foot skyscraper, claiming that the development usurped upon the valuable 1.2 million square feet of air rights over Grand Central, which Midtown claimed were worth $880 per square foot.
• The project received the go-ahead from the city after a rezoning of building height requirements. As part of New York City’s public review process, SL Green agreed to privately fund $220 million worth of public transit improvements in and around the Grand Central Terminal transit network.

Dive Insight:

Grand Central's owners purchased the terminal building for $80 million in 2006 hoping to see a payoff from the sale of the air rights, and, at one point, tried to negotiate with SL Green for a portion of them, according to The Times. When city officials rezoned the area around the station, however, SL Green was able to move forward with its project without involving Midtown TD Ventures.

SL Green awarded the construction contract for One Vanderbilt to Tishman Construction, a subsidiary of global construction and engineering firm AECOM, earlier this year. Developers said the LEED-certified building's design will "fit seamlessly" with that of its other famous neighbor, the Chrysler Building, and the project itself will feature more than 1.5 million square feet of Class A office space, a 14,000-square-foot plaza and a public transit hall.

The new development is part of an overall construction boom that resulted in a 2015 $61 billion total payoff for New York City, 7% more than 2014's total of $57 billion. Construction-related activity accounted for $39 billion, and the associated output generated another $22 billion. City construction and ancillary employment in 2015 was also up with the addition of 300,000 jobs with an average annual salary of $84,000. According to a New York Building Congress report, residential building in 2015 totaled $14.9 billion, while government project spending reached $12.6 billion and nonresidential clocked in at $11.6 billion.

Another  major contributor to the increase in the city's total construction revenue will be the massive Hudson Yards mixed-use development. A study published earlier this year found that, when complete, the project will have increased New York City revenue by $18.9 billion, or 2.5% of its gross domestic product. Developers will also pay almost $500 million in annual city taxes.