New York´s second highest tower construction has already begun

The One Vanderbilt skyscraper construction works have started so that, in 2020, it will be New York´s second highest tower with 58 floors and 427 meters high.

The building base will integrate the city´s Grand Central Transport Terminal at the corner of 42nd Street and Vanderbilt Avenue, in downtown Manhattan.

The skyscraper will reach 157,000 square meters, a 427 meters height and will only stay below the so-called "Freedom Tower", the One World Trade Centre that was built in the rubble of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks and whose total height is 541 meters.

Authored by the Kohn Pedersen Fox (KPF) company, the project is rated in 220 million dollars (almost 200 million euros) and the work is expected to be completed until 2020.

Building with the highest LEED certification

“Formally, the building’s massing is comprised of four interlocking and tapering volumes that spiral toward the sky, an elegant shape in sympathetic proportion to the nearby Chrysler Building”, according to One Vanderbilt´s KPF site presentation.

“At the base, a series of angled cuts organize a visual procession to Grand Central, revealing the Vanderbilt corner of the terminal’s magnificent cornice – a view that has been obstructed for nearly a century”, further reveals the architecture company.

The architectonic and engineering project plans to build a public square and interventions in the transports terminal circulation system with new outputs and the subway platforms modification as well as a renovated station under the Grand Central.

It is also sure that One Vanderbilt will be classified with the maximum LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification.

This building assessment system aims to promote a sustainable construction detailing a number of criteria for real estate planning, construction and maintenance, namely in terms of energy, indoor air quality, efficient use of water, materials and resources.

"A new gateway to the city"

New York’s mayor, Bill de Blasio, had the idea for the building implementation in the context of upgrading Manhattan downtown, the city´ most densely inhabited area and its economical and business center.

“This building will change its neighborhood for the better. It will provide a new gateway to the city made possible only through the unusually harmonious partnership between architect, developer, and the City of New York”, assures the KPF president, James von Klemperer, coted by The New York Post.