UPDATED, 1:35 p.m., May 31: The top brass from the Related Companies and Coach employees eased into the week following their Memorial Day weekend with a fete as they gathered at 10 Hudson Yards Tuesday to officially open the first tower at the 17 million-square-foot campus.
The celebration came as the culmination of over a decade of planning by developers and city officials, which began with the January 2005 rezoning of the Far West Side. The City Council approved Related’s Hudson Yards redevelopment plan in 2009.
“Making it happen in reality is really something that, as a developer, you can’t believe the excitement that one really has,” said Related CEO Stephen Ross, who will move to Hudson Yards when its condo buildings rise on the Far West Side. “This is just a preview of what’s to come, but I think you can see the quality of what we’re doing here and what our vision is.”
Coach employees pose for at a photo booth at the opening of 10 Hudson Yards
Coach employees gathered on the company’s private entrance on the second floor of the 52-story tower, which is level with the elevated High Line park. They were greeted with orange juice and hors d’oeuvre as they walked past a glass wall displaying the fashion brand’s leather bags in a rainbow spectrum of colors. A photo booth was even set up where employees could pose with “10 Hudson Yards” props to commemorate the occasion.
“We have been in this neighborhood for north of 50 years, and as we celebrate this year our 75th anniversary, we do so by entering our new home here at 10 Hudson Yards,” said Coach CEO Victor Luis.
Coach, which paid $750 million to buy its roughly 740,000 square-foot office condo in the building, is still looking to sell a 43 percent stake in the property. The anchor tenant began moving the first group of its 1,400 employees into the building – mostly back-office and and human resources workers.
By 2025, Related and Oxford will have spent over $20 billion on the project.
“Until you start to do it, you don’t understand the magnitude of what you are taking on,” Ross told the Wall Street Journal. “You sit back, and you plow ahead.”
Several other tenants have also made commitments to take space at the 52-story, 1.7 million-square-foot 10 Hudson Yards, including L’Oreal, BCG, Intersection, Sidewalk Labs and VaynerMedia.
Two of the towers, 10 and 30 Hudson Yards, were designed to appear as if engaged in a sort of perpetual dance, architect Kohn Pedersen and Fox said at a panel moderated by Amir Korangy last month.
Related and Oxford’s other massive tower in the area, 30 Hudson Yards, is set to open in 2019. The developers have said they expect Hudson Yards as a whole to draw about 125,000 people per day.