World Product Centre backs out of Extell’s proposed 34th Street skyscraper

The World Product Centre, the anchor tenant for Gary Barnett and his Extell Development’s proposed 60-story tower at 555 West 34th Street near the Javits Center and the West Side Rail Yards, has changed its mind and is going elsewhere, the Post reported. WPC founder Israel Green signed a letter for intent for 1 million feet of the 1.5 million-foot building in 2007, intending to sublease much of the space to subtenants like Hewlett-Packard. Instead, the planned healthcare products showcase will be housed in just 300,000 feet of alternate space where the rent is cheaper. “The advantages are we can deliver in 18 months and be considerably less expensive for our tenants,” John Strong, CEO of WPC, told a Nashville newspaper. In July, WPC had said groundbreaking on the 34th Street site was planned for November, but the Department of Buildings has a stop-work order out on the site after builders were caught working without permits there in September. Extell’s interest-only $60 million mortgage on the site is due at the beginning of July to New York Community Bank, but that deadline could be extended, according to the Post.