Why No One Wants This New York Skyscraper

of all the construction sites in the world few have generated more contentional debates than New York's World Trade Center you'll probably recognize One World Trade Center that sits here it's now an iconic skyscraper that rises beside the footprints of the original Twin Towers but what you might not be aware of is that it's actually part of a much bigger development of skyscrapers all around the 911 memorial site but notice this giant Gap right here it's like something's missing if you look at the latest rendering of the site you'll see another shiny new skyscraper that's supposed to be standing right here but go to Google Maps or even walk down here and you'll see there's just some colorful murals on some steel sheds opposite the Oculus now this isn't just a fancy Art Exhibit it's actually The Unfinished foundations of a massive new skyscraper called two World Trade Center and just over here there's another empty site where a residential Tower called five World Trade Center is supposed to sit developers once thought these buildings would all be wrapped up by 2020. yep here we are in 2022 the remaining buildings are just renders and there's two gaping holes in what's arguably one of the world's most important regeneration projects and most intriguingly of all when you try and find out why that is you hit a bit of a brick wall we want to rebuild a World Trade Center as the world drinks out but better a little bit taller a lot stronger just plain better after the attacks on September 11 2001 people moved out of downtown and so did businesses only way to stem this Exodus was to prove to people that were going to rebuild and we did the New York City skyline is a graveyard for broken projects projects that never happen development is not a it's not a very clean sport it's a blood sport it gets messy the Trade Center has taken and excruciating a lot of time there's just a lot of cooks in the kitchen and when it comes to the World Trade Center it's the best way to put it in simple terms we're going to tell you the story of the battle to finish New York's new World Trade Center but that story reveals a lot about how money politics and design determine the future of this city [Music] if there's one thing New York is known for it's skyscrapers every year it feels like there's another one going up around the block these awe-inspiring structures have pretty much come to Define this city their evolution now standing as an historic record of our engineering progress how exactly does a skyscraper even get built well we kind of specialize in that on this channel and we might have covered the process of digging a hole putting up some steel beams and building a super tool structure just a few times before it's a really exciting and important step and don't you worry we are going to get to it in loads of detail but right now I'm talking about all the stuff that happens way before that there's a lot that needs to happen just to reach the point of putting that first Spade in the ground and especially in New York City to help you try and get your head around it we've broken it down into four main stages stage one location and acquisition developers first need to choose where they want to build their skyscraper all kinds of things like land value sidewalk circulation zoning laws and the need for a skyscraper in the area all facts are into where these towers get constructed now a few people know more about skyscrapers than the founder of the b1m but just to make sure I had it right I called Professor Jason Barr he's a guy who studies the economics of these buildings there's a lot of desire to be in clusters where a lot of firms are in general and where your employees will want to work you know it tends to evolve in Manhattan you know downtown was aging and Midtown was a hot you know district for many years and firms started going back down the World Trade Center area now they're some of them moving to Hudson yards so a lot of the Hot Pockets can change based simply on where new space is opening up developers need to actually acquire the Lots they're eyeing which usually means buying out current owners and according to Jason this stage can take years or even decades to complete once developers have the land to build on they're ready to move on to stage two design now most skyscrapers fall into one of two main categories residential filled with apartments or even a hotel or commercial used for offices and retail stores some skyscrapers have mixed uses some have viewing platforms and Sky pools but you get the broad idea so if you have acquired a fairly large lot in a nice location then the next step would be to start getting plans run up they hire an architect the architect works with Engineers to make sure that the building can be constructed in the third stage comes financing of course there's sometimes a bit of this up front too before land acquisition happens but developers usually need a good idea of where a building will be and what it might look like before they can raise Finance now New York is pricey if you thought renting an apartment or buying a property here was steep dry constructing a skyscraper it's one of the world's most expensive cities to build in your average commercial Tower here costs around 6 000 US dollars per square meter it's five thousand dollars in Chicago and a little over three thousand in Tokyo so developers either need a lot of their own cash or a loan to pay for construction costs then of course there's the last stage the process of actually building these massive structures now I love about skyscraper engineering so let's get into it putting all this into layman's terms the process starts by digging into the Earth and Bedrock to create the building's Foundation usually this will be made up of concrete pillars called piles that will support the skyscrapers superstructure above and the layout varies depending on the design and weight of the building then it's on to the superstructure which is usually formed of either reinforced concrete or steel around a concrete core or in some cases a combination of both steel frames tend to be the most common approach in New York City normally workers build a concrete core in the center housing the buildings stairs services and elevator shafts still framing is then steadily built around the core as it rises and concrete floors are laid across the beams finally the building is clad in concrete aluminum or glass and then fitted out internally with mechanical and electrical services one particular Quirk of New York City is that unlike almost anywhere else on Earth the steel frame Rises before the concrete core it all goes back to those iconic black and white images and the steel workers unions they like to have clear working areas away from other trades as far as possible now that's a very simple overview of the four-step process but not all skyscraper projects managed to clear every hurdle some get stuck in certain stages and never become reality New York has completed more of these buildings than almost any other city in the world with the exception of Hong Kong today it's home to iconic Legends like the Chrysler Building Empire State and one World Trade Center buildings we'd all instinctively think of when we hear the word skyscraper [Music] Lower Manhattan is where New York City's first skyscraper was built and over the years it transformed into a high-rise Financial hub before one World Trade Center stood here the downtown area was of course home to the Twin Towers they were the tallest buildings in the world when they first completed back in 1973 and wants to find the city's Skyline back then they were owned by the Port Authority of New York City and New Jersey a quasi-independent government agency that maintains certain infrastructure across the two states the agency built the towers in Hope of boosting development in the neighborhoods but it had the opposite effect vacancy rates grew while the real estate value sank it wasn't until the economic boom of the 1990s that more people started using them over the years the Port Authority come under pressure to sell the World Trade Center it was never supposed to be in the real estate business in July 2001 American businessman Larry Silverstein signed a 99-year lease on the towers and other authority-owned properties for 3.2 billion US dollars then came one of America's Darkest Days this just is we have unconfirmed reports this morning that a plane has crashed into one of the towers of the World Trade Center no doubt there was a huge explosion and fire lots of black smoke coming from that building into oh my goodness oh God there's another one [Music] in the wake of 9 11 the world began to debate what would become of the ground zero sites and what could ever fill the painful Gap now left in the city skyline should the Twin Towers be restored or should a completely new structure assume their place should the site be immemorial or should the city replace the significant amount of commercial office space that had been lost some believed there should be nothing built at all just weeks after the attack Silverstein Sparks a legal battle that hindered any moves on construction for nearly the next six years when he signed the lead for the Twin Towers in 2001 he had to take out a 3.5 billion dollar insurance policy on the buildings but he and his lawyers argued that the attack occurred as two separate events and the policy should therefore pay out double the amount Silverstein saw 7.1 billion dollars but in the end was awarded just 4.6 billion which went towards paying rent to the port authority and potential future projects meanwhile the debate around how to reconstruct the site was rumbling on and that second stage of creating a skyscraper designing it was causing a bit of a hold up after initially holding a contest with over 2 000 submissions in late 2002 the city chose this master plan design by Studio leadskint the initial idea included a 1776 foot spindle-shaped structure called the Freedom Tower the building's height would nod to the year of American independence and stand beside four other descending skyscrapers in a semi-circle that kind of bowed to the memorial site at the time developer Silverstein thought it could all be built by 2020. attacks were brought in to design their own skyscrapers within the framework of liebeskin's overall master plan and it's fair to say that caused just a little bit of friction particularly with the Freedom Tower which was being designed by David Childs of Skidmore Owings and Meryl parties wrestled to balance the desire for commercial space with the very real yearning for somber symbolism some wanted a strong building where others wanted an elegant one the results was a bit of a compromise all round that ended up going on to become iconic though largely because of its height and sight location today there are now a total of four commercial skyscrapers planned for the site given this was now one of the most important and iconic construction sites in American history pretty much everyone wants to put their stamp on how the site should look and that design stage took longer than expected eventually the site slowly took shape a new Memorial and moving underground museum were constructed four World Trade Center opened in 2013 followed by the Freedom Tower then renamed One World Trade Center in 2014 and three World Trade Center the latest edition in 2018. now the money to develop the entire site came from a handful of different sources for each building including a combination of Silverstein's insurance proceeds the U.S federal government and liberty bonds a federal tax exempt program but one of the four skyscrapers hasn't really made it past the drawing boards and while there's been plenty of disagreement and Architectural debate about what it should actually look like the bigger hold up might actually be about the money so who exactly is paying for all these skyscrapers to go up and how to products like this really make it past stage three of the process well it depends one option that some have is through Government funding but that ain't too common in New York it's normally reserved for special projects or housing One World Trade Center is one of those special developments that largely relied on the U.S federal government's money for its construction the final cost of that remarkably symbolic and physically robust building was nearly 4 billion US Dollars one of the most expensive skyscrapers ever built in the US ually developers looking to build a skyscraper either dip into their own money or more commonly put together a business case and request loans from lenders to cover their construction costs those lenders might be entities like Banks frankly those lenders want to be sure that they're going to get their money back and one way that a big new development like two World Trade Center can build confidence is by securing what's known as an anchor tenants before Construction entertainments uh are usually large firms that rent a substantial amount of space and they'll pre-lease this space usually before even the shovel hits the ground and so if an anchored tenant a large Law Firm a large media firm signs on a large lease for let's say 200 000 square feet of space which could be 20 percent of the building for example it signals to all of the players involved that there is a demand and interest in the building anchor tenants are looking at what a building has to offer things like amenities and location doing a big deal early on as the anchor means these companies can usually expect to pay less rent the big anchor tenant can even help transform its surrounding neighborhoods when Vice and Etsy decided to move their offices to Brooklyn the borough exploded in popularity but finding the right company to sign a multi-million dollar lease can be a hard sell and that's what's been happening over at two World Trade Center Silverstein hasn't been able to convince any firm to move their offices into the new building it's been through multiple radical redesigns and it's still not part of this City's Skyline [Applause] Hawaii [Applause] back in 2005 Architecture Firm fosterone Partners was awarded the rights to design the upcoming project it unveiled ideas for a 387 meter structure of four interconnecting columns that created a slanted Diamond at their Summit the lower levels will be built out as banking trading floors in an attempts to lure Financial anchor tenants for a site right by Wall Street that made great sense now that idea for two World Trade Center even made it to the final stage of the process workers broke ground and started the foundations with the idea of finishing the whole thing by 2011. the project began without an anchor tenant and instead relied on liberty bonds that were available at the time they didn't get very far rumors began circulating that Silverstein was struggling to find the necessary anger tenants to make the structure financially viable after 9 11 the state of the downtown area began to change no longer was it filled with just Financial companies and Wall Street Bankers instead media and tech companies began moving in Condon asked the company that owns Vogue and GQ even signed a 25-year lease for a whopping 21 floors of one World Trade Center meanwhile the original financial institutions were looking elsewhere and Banks were no longer enticed by the scheme with no anchor tenant the developers moved on from Foster and partners design construction works all came to a halt down here in 2012 living behind just the foundations which also contained the mechanical systems for the Oculus that's the Transportation Hub just behind me but instead of giving up on the building Silverstein came up with another plan in 2015 he reportedly turned to a foreign Visa program to try and bring in some funding from China and then in 2015 he brought on a new and sore of younger Architects to redesign the tower and it was back to stage two enter Bjork Ingalls the architect's design took things in an entire New Direction and lit up social media gone were the banking training floors and in came an attempts to entice more media and tech companies with edgy workspaces and Studios the building became a series of stacked boxes that descended in a stepped formation each tailored to a different company's activities it would have Greenville Terraces and Rise 408 meters above Manhattan it worked the media Executives of 21st Century Fox and news corporations signed an initial agreement and planned to move in during 2020 once their Midtown leases had expired they were even offered millions of dollars in subsidies and tax credits to make them move downtown easier things for two World Trade Center were looking up foreign but not long after a few big problems began to surface the team were trying to build off foundations for a different earlier version of the skyscraper Lots would need to be reconfigured in 2016 the finalized deal with the media companies fell through suddenly developers at Silverstein were said to be no longer certain about which design to go with moving back and forth between Bjork Ingalls and Foster that all caused development on two World Trade Center to stall once again for years the project remained in limbo and Silverstein focused on signing other leases on the site then in January 2020 some fresh news broke Silverstein was reportedly going back to the deal with Foster and partners yes after all that the developer decided to stick with the original architects but given the history and the amount of time that had gone by Silverstein made it clear he wouldn't be going back to the old design from Foster instead something more contemporary was going to be worked up but that was early 2020 and we all know what happened that year we're going to begin here with the outbreak of a mystery virus in China stars like virus right tonight New York State's 19 million residents will be under a stay-at-home order yeah so not an ideal time for convincing people to back a new office building so that's what brought us to today the developers haven't been able to recruit on a design and that's made it hard to get tenants signed up but what's not so clear is what's happening now and as we've discovered through our investigation it's actually pretty hard work trying to find out what's really happening down at one of the world's most iconic construction sites [Music] we've tried reaching out to several people either involved or with knowledge about two World Trade Center but we've hit a lot of dead ends people either didn't reply or directed us to other sources who also didn't reach back for comments Silverstein properties didn't respond to our repeated requests for comments what we do know is that Silverstein has confirmed the media on several occasions that it's confident this structure will go up eventually but that's as far as most reporters get but it wasn't total silence we did hear back from a couple of real estate experts in the city who gave us some insight into what they thought might be happening and how that compares to the rest of New York I mean my understanding about two World Trade Center is you know they want to build it when it's financially feasible because at the end of the day you know you have to be able to cover your expenses and cover your construction costs and a lot of it is really because there's so many people invested in what gets built and you also don't want to you know saturate the market all at one time in one place so heavily the market for construction financing for ground up new development Towers is very challenging if you're building office right the capital markets froze during the pandemic but are have come back now interest rates have gone up again when interest rates go up it becomes a lot more expensive to build so you will see that interest rates will affect the rate of construction in New York and other places right so now interest rates are high we're talking about an office Market that is again as I said there's a lot of questions around it do workers need that kind of Hub anymore do you need a million square feet as of today there's still no official word on what the latest design for two World Trade Center is going to look like but that didn't stop a few renders leaking in early 2022 instead of those four diamond-shaped columns the design has vertical sections that alternate in height starting at around 411 meters each section is divided by metal fins and those Greenfield Terraces that seem to be the current trend on nearly every skyscraper render get to stay if this design is confirmed then Foster and partners will have significantly altered its original proposal from 2006. fair enough 16 years have gone by but what happens if Silverstein can't secure an anchor tenant with this new design there are other ways to maybe you could slice and dice the building and instead of looking for one giant tenant to start things off you get 10 smaller tenants who fill the same space right maybe this is a almost like a food court type a situation where you have you know a tummy Hub or a tech Hub or a media hub and it's branded and marketed in that way in general building on a site with such a heavy and well-known past has proven difficult the Gap in the master plan shows just how important it is to find the right tenants to fill a commercial skyscraper the wrong design won't bring the right tenants to work there and that can make it impossible for anything to get off the ground now that downtown Manhattan is evolving it's a question of who it can attract and when [Music] this video is made possible by Masterworks two world trade Center's struggles probably haven't been helped by the huge losses that have hit Wall Street this year 13 trillion dollars was wiped out in the worst six-month stretch the stock market has ever seen that's more than the GDP of Japan Germany and the UK combined but it's not just big companies feeling the pain everyday investors are too best case scenario a typical stock heavy portfolio is expected to Flatline this year according to Goldman Sachs one study found that 1810 ultra high net worth individuals are already investing outside the stock market and into alternative Investments like art even in New York Times report says that when stock markets take a dive people look to invest in art Lots outpaced the S P 500 for the last 26 years by more than double so it makes sense that Masterworks is seeing more demand than ever they let you invest in this same high value contemporary art from Legends like Picasso and Banksy for a fraction of the price when Masterworks resells a painting you're invested in you get a share of the potential profits despite a pandemic struggling stock market and record high inflation Masterworks has sold six paintings for an average net return of 29 to their investors there's a wait list to join their already 500 000 members but you can skip it by clicking the link in the description now let's get back to the video [Laughter] [Music] if you can't find a business to use a skyscraper what about giving people a place to live nowadays the office plays a very different role in our lives than it did when this building was first put forwards all those years ago one thing is clear New York City lags lags hocketing rents for New York this problem isn't exactly a new one housing is in constant demand residential high-rise construction has been the dominant form of high-rise Construction in the last 20 25 30 years office markets tend to go in these sort of longer Cycles you'll have a building boom of offices then too much space comes out of line for a while one of the many new residential skyscrapers planned to go up is actually right here at the World Trade Center complex and if you look at the outline again you'll see that this building 2 has yet to be built alongside some office space the 274 meter five World Trade Center would contain some 1 200 new apartments and there'd be a pedestrian bridge linking it to the elevated Liberty Park at the moment about 25 of the units are set aside for affordable housing and because housing is so badly needed in New York right now it's a bit further ahead in the process than two World Trade Center the plan for the affordable units falls under a requirement from the city's mandatory inclusionary housing program it says that a new development in rezone neighborhoods must use 20 to 30 percent of its floor area for affordable properties and that could mean you change a manufacturing building to residential it could mean that you were only allowed to build a four-story building here and now you can build a 40-story building here whatever it is that if you do that you have to set aside a portion for income restricted housing where it's reserved for people making less than a certain amount of money and rents are set at a certain rate and can only increase by a certain percentage each year but some activists are fighting for the skyscraper to be 100 affordable in fact the tallest affordable housing structure in the world they argue that it should be home to those families and survivors affected by the events of 9 11. the only way that can happen is if somebody bought him out and took ownership of the building and ran that building at a loss I mean because you know if you're going to spend two to three billion dollars on that structure you're gonna have to come up with a way to generate the revenue to pay for it now many elected officials say there is value in adding more affordable units to an area but they also recognize that subsidizing construction costs might not be the best use of their already limited resources in recent months the state government has made several moves on construction and funding for affordable housing developments throughout New York but these are much smaller and don't face the same obstacles or Spotlight as five World Trade Center you know there's a real difference between you know a process for figuring out what you want to do with the World Trade Center in a process to see if you want to put up an apartment building in College Point one affects the neighborhood the other one really does affect uh you know not just the entire city but the region and arguably even beyond that with so much history and tragedy tied to it the World Trade Center is one of the most unique and challenging construction sites on the planet both two and five World Trade Center find themselves confronted with immense challenges just to put a spade in the ground but while their issues might be particularly extreme they aren't exclusive right across this city new skytower projects face the same challenges finding the right businesses to buy space in a changing economy building apartments that provide housing people really need and securing the money to make it all happen I'm in the New York City skyline is a graveyard for broken projects projects that never happen one of the most Vivid examples is the Redevelopment that Jared Kushner and Charlie kushner's Company wanted to do with 666 Fifth Avenue they had brought in a Chinese partner called anbang at the time and they wanted to do this five billion dollar Redevelopment of that skyscraper that never happened the Sony building which is 550 Madison Avenue beautiful Phillip Johnson design building the initial plan during the condo boom was to turn that into luxury condos as well and instead a Saudi group came in bought it and is just continuing to run it as offices at the end of the day the developers of commercial and residential skyscrapers all want to turn a profit but without consensus or design or funding structures will get stuck in those initial stages of development even skyscrapers that already exist are having to adapt to the changes brought on by the pandemic downtown vacancies in cities aren't back to pre-pandemic levels with many older buildings sitting empty cities are looking for alternatives to fill the space these older buildings in downtown Manhattan are better suited to become Apartments if you have an old office building and a lot of them are built and kind of what we call a wedding cake fashion where you have a larger base and then kind of a Slender Tower those slender Towers make for a perfect apartment layouts [Music] though it may be at the extreme end of the scale New York's World Trade Center showcases many of the challenges and sensitivities facing construction projects today and especially our skyscrapers these buildings Define our cities and reflect the state of our societies back to us there are products of the struggles that got them off the ground and the forces that shaped them the result is a record of our history preserved in concrete and steel whatever structures rise from these sites will become a part of New York's story [Music] this video was made possible by Masterworks you can skip their Queue at the link below and as always if you enjoyed this video and you want to get more from the definitive video channel for construction subscribe to the b1m [Music]

Channel: The B1M

Views: 2,192,725

Keywords: B1M, TheB1M, Construction, architecture, engineering, The B1M, Fred Mills, building, skyscraper, silverstein, larry silverstein, manhattan, world trade center, one world trade center, 2 world trade center, three world trade center, 4 world trade center, 5 world trade cemter, structure, tower, office, residential, hudson yards, midtown, lower manhattan, financial district, twin towers, world trade centre, silverstein properties, anchor tenant, NYC, new york, One World Trade Center, 1WTC, WTC

Id: juW1fisteWE

Length: 32min 9sec (1929 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 28 2022