No. 7 train’s imminent debut escalates West Side buys

A new stop off the 7 train just west of 10th Avenue near West 34th Street is slated to open around the summer of 2014, prompting developers to buy up sites in the area at a frantic pace.

With the subway extension scheduled, West Side landlords and developers are anticipating that more tenants will follow such firms as Time Warner and L’Oréal that have already booked huge blocks of space in the area, Crain’s reported. Citigroup is also mulling relocating its global headquarters to Hudson Yards.

The Related Companies, for example, has been the most active buyer of sites in the area. The developer is already in the process of developing the 26-acre, $15 billion Hudson Yards complex, and now has entered into a contract to acquire a parcel between West 35th and 36th streets for $75 million, as The Real Deal reported. The site will border a new “Hudson Boulevard,” which the city will construct to run between 10th and 11th avenues.

“When we talked to tenants years ago about coming to the Hudson Yards and explained all the infrastructure that would be here and how the No. 7 train would make it convenient, they would look at you like you were crazy,” Jared Della Valle, an executive at Alloy Development, which owns a commercial development site west of 10th Avenue between West 35th and 36th streets, told Crain’s. “Now that has changed.” [Crain’s] – James Comtois