Dive Brief:
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The Brooklyn skyline could add a tower nearly as tall as the Empire State Building now that two New York developers have acquired property with sufficient air rights to allow them to build the borough’s tallest structure.
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Luxury developers Michael Stern — who built one of the tallest condominium buildings on Manhattan’s Billionaires’ Row — and Joe Chetrit reportedly have bought the former Dime Savings Bank of New York in Brooklyn for $90 million as well as the property next door, whose combined air rights would allow them to construct a 600,000-square-foot tower.
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Crain’s New York Business reported on Wednesday that the developers are considering a tower that stretches between 1,000 and 1,200 feet skyward. The Empire State Building, sans antenna, is 1,250 feet tall.
Dive Insight:
The developers’ reported plan is the latest in a 90-year-old game of one-upmanship that has regularly redefined the cloud-skimming New York City skyline.
The new tower in Brooklyn would be far shorter than Manhattan’s tallest tower, One World Trade Center, which stands 1,776 feet tall including its spire and is the tallest building in the Western Hemisphere. But it would hover far above the 596-foot Avalon Willoughby West, which will be the borough’s tallest structure when it opens next year.
The Empire State Building was New York’s — and the world’s — tallest structure from 1931, when it opened, until 1973, when construction of the original World Trade Center’s 1,368- and 1,362-feet-tall towers bumped the landmark from the top of the list.
There has also been debate regarding whether One World Trade Center will lose its rank as well once the planned Nordstrom Tower, also known as the Central Park Tower, is finished. Developers reportedly changed the size of the West 57th Street building’s spire so it would outstretch One World Trade Center and take its place as the tallest building in New York, the U.S. and the Western Hemisphere.
But Gary Barnett, president of the building's development company, told the New York Post that he would maintain his promise to keep the building's height slightly below that of One World Trade Center "out of respect."
