1,575-Foot Tower From RXR, TF Cornerstone Wins City Council Approval

RXR Realty and TF Cornerstone are inching closer to their goal of building a new supertall in Midtown East after securing the approval of the New York City Council.

The approval paves the way for the two companies to build a 1,575-foot-tall building to replace the Grand Hyatt at 109 East 42nd St., Bloomberg reports. Dubbed 175 Park Ave., the developers are planning a mixed-use building with more than 2.1M SF of offices and a 500-room Grand Hyatt hotel, as well as 10K SF of open-air public space and 43K SF of retail.

“We’ve always strongly believed the city will continue to be the magnet for talent and the economic engine that it has been historically,” RXR Senior Vice President Jeff Nelson told Bloomberg. “If you think about where the city’s center of gravity will be, it will be around Grand Central.”

The building made use of the Midtown East rezoning, which was implemented in 2017 with the goal of encouraging more office development in the area. With city approval cleared, TF Cornerstone and RXR will begin arranging financing with the view of starting demolition work on the Grand Hyatt in 2023. The building was one of Donald Trump’s first developments in the city, though he has long since sold it.

Plans for 175 Park Ave. were first announced in 2019, and first renderings for the project were released earlier this year. The development is set to bring a set of improvements to Grand Central Terminal and the Grand Central-42nd Street Subway station, in keeping with zoning rules, Commercial Observer reported in February.

The developers would build an upgraded subway entrance at East 42nd Street, along with a new transit hall with retail that would be built on the western side of the development site and connect to the terminal, according to the Environment Assessment Statement RXR and TF Cornerstone filed with the city last year.