Axed Midtown East plans quash SL Green’s One Vanderbilt

Rendering of office tower One Vanderbilt in Midtown East
Rendering of office tower One Vanderbilt in Midtown East

The demise of Mayor Bloomberg’s Midtown East rezoning proposal put a freeze on developer SL Green Realty’s lofty plans for a 65-story, 1.5 million-square-foot office tower One Vanderbilt adjacent to Grand Central Station.

The 73-block rezoning would have allowed for taller skyscrapers, specifically the one SL Green CEO Marc Holliday hoped to build. The firm planned to donate $200 million for public improvements and expand the train station’s underground concourse to connect to the tower, the New York Daily News reported.

An underground hallway would cover both 42nd and 43rd Streets, and create new entrances to the terminal and a 4,500-square-foot glass space for the public at 43rd Street and Vanderbilt Avenue.

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“We appreciate the growing consensus that there is an urgent need for modern office buildings in Midtown and the transit infrastructure to support them,” Holliday told the Daily News.

SL Green unveiled designs for the tower, located at Vanderbilt and Madison avenues and 42nd and 43rd streets, last month, as previously reported.

The Midtown East plan is not totally dead, as mayor-elect Bill de Blasio has vowed to revisit the plan, albeit with potentially significant changes. [NYDN]Mark Maurer