When straphangers get off at the new 7 train station at 34th Street in 2013, they may actually have somewhere to go.
Hudson Yards, the once-stalled mega-project of Mayor Michael Bloomberg, took a giant leap forward yesterday when Coach, Inc. announced they would be the 26-acre development’s first tenant.
“The market has spoken,” crowed a gleeful Bloomberg at a press conference yesterday at the rail yard on the far West side of Manhattan. “Today’s news will have a domino effect on the rest of the development.”
Coach plans to occupy nearly 600,000 square feet, or one-third, of the south office tower at the corner of 30th Street and 10th Avenue. Construction will begin on the tower early as mid 2012, and the accompanying Hudson Boulevard Park will be open to New Yorkers as early as 2013, when the 7 train is slated to open.
A public plaza, a hotel, residential buildings and a cultural center, nicknamed the “CultureShed,” will be also be built as part of the first phase of development, estimated to be complete by 2016. Hudson Yards will stretch from 10th Avenue to the West Side Highway and from 30th to 33rd streets.
Coach may not be the only fashionable tenant; Bloomberg also hinted yesterday he may to move Fashion Week to Hudson Yards.
“Fashion Week has outgrown Lincoln Center,” said Bloomberg. “The CultureShed would be able to house it.”
7 to NJ revived?
Some are musing that yesterday’s news may give the 7-train extension to New Jersey a shot in the arm.
“The 7 will open up this area … it will unleash development and if we can get it to New Jersey, why wouldn’t we?” said Jonathan Bowles, director of the Center for an Urban Future “There’s a lot more population growth in New Jersey than Long Island. It’s important for the city’s economic future to
expand transportation options between New York and New Jersey.”
Follow Emily Anne Epstein on Twitter @EmilyatMetro.
