Extell’s Theater District Highrise Lines Up for Major Tourism

A mixed-use tower is skybound at 740 Eighth Avenue, and early renderings suggest it will be one of the quirkier additions to the Manhattan skyline.

Gary Barnett’s Extell Development proposal looks more like a Lego creation than the city’s latest tourist attraction. It will mix hotel, fine dining and thrill rides in a 56-story highrise.

The uncanny shape was designed by ODA Architecture, the masterminds behind D.C.’s futuristic Southwest Waterfront addition, The Wharf.

An early rendering of 740 Eighth Avenue (Photo taken by Joe Lovinger)

The power drill–shaped building has three primary exterior components: a base that will combine 825 hotel rooms and retail shopping; a smaller, bulky top section that will feature a restaurant and undisclosed VIP space and a thin stem in the middle that will offer a 260-foot indoor freefall tower drop between the two.

Three floors of observation decks are also pitched for the upper tiers of the highrise. According to Department of Buildings filings shared on Skyscraperpage, visitors will be shuffled through a turnstile-accessed zone at the 56th floor and descend through multiple viewing points around the building’s peak.

With so many tourist attractions in one space, the chunky colossus is set to rival some of the city’s other highrise attractions, competing for millions of visitors who flock annually to Rockefeller Center’s Top of the Rock and Hudson Yards’ daunting skydeck, Edge.

The plan was set in motion 10 years ago, when Barnett’s firm acquired the property from Boston Properties and Stephen Ross’ Related Companies, which had tried but failed to launch a high-end office property at the site in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis.

Since then, the Theater District space has been completely reimagined, nabbing nearby properties and securing air rights to evade requirements for a special permit.

Just three, four-story buildings remain, standing in the way of the proposed 776,000-square-foot tower’s total ownership of the Eighth Avenue stretch: an Irish pub, a gift shop and a nearly 30-year-old Italian restaurant.

Extell, ODA Architecture and contracting group Lendlease did not respond to requests for comment.

Joe Lovinger contributed reporting.