All stories about "Helmut Jahn"

Earlier this week, developer Time Equities broke ground on architect Helmut Jahn's 65-story hotel/condo tower at 50 West Street. And to celebrate said occasion, the company issued a new rendering of the $600 million tower, which is expected to be completed in 2011. It replaces the tiny one we've been using all this time, and it is very very large. Here's what the site looked like not to long ago...

Click the image above to view the full photogallery.

With Tishman Speyer now in the driver's seat at the Hudson Yards (proposal images above), let's take a closer look at the West Side's new overlords. Founded in 1978 by partners Robert Tishman and Jerry Speyer, Tishman Speyer has grown to become one of the largest real estate development/investment/management firms in the country, if not—dramatic pause—the world. Signature properties in Tishman Speyer's portfolio include the Chrysler Building, Rockefeller Center and Berlin's Sony Center.

In 2006, Tishman Speyer purchased the middle-class enclave of Stuyvesant Town/Peter Cooper Village in Manhattan for a record $5.4 billion, and the company has been busy gussying it up and shifting the apartments to pricey market-rate rentals. Soon after, the company set another record, selling the office building at 666 Fifth Avenue for $1.8 billion. Phew. OK, now that that's settled, let's focus on the future of the rail yards, twice the acreage of the World Trade Center and almost as complicated. The $1.004 billion deal with the MTA for the development rights may be settles, but there are many questions left to be answered.

Click the image above to view the full photogallery.

Eventually, 50 West Street will be a 63-story condo-hotel born in the mind of architect Helmut Jahn. Now, however, 50 West Street is just another plot of land that needs pulverizing. Writes our phototipster: "There is some impressive demo going on at the new tower at 50 West Street. I'm sure this is a nightmare for the people at 90 Washington Street." Those living in WTCville should be used to this sort of thing by now, no? Though, this is one hard Helmet hit.
· All Lower Manhattan Hotel Secrets Revealed! [Curbed]

Our foray into the bowels of Lower Manhattan is showing no sign of letting up. Today we've already had the 99 Church reveal, the Fulton Street Transit Hub debacle and the slimmed-down Chase tower, and now, a doozy of a document has arrived via the CurbedWire. The Downtown Alliance's press release on 99 Church's upcoming Four Seasons hotel also includes information on 10 under-construction and in-development Lower Manhattan hotels. Some we've heard of before, some we haven't. There's also new information about some of those previously-announced projects. In all, about 1,700 new rooms are planned or proposed, not including the numerous projects farther along in construction or recently opened (Gild Hall, the Smyth,, et al.).

We'll tackle the list after the jump, but here's a headline. On Pearl Street, where the demolition of a row of historic townhouses briefly made worldwide headlines, the Lam Group was believed to be planning a massive 660-room Sheraton. That is partly true. Get this: the 53-story 217 Pearl Street will be made up of two hotels, a Sheraton and an Aloft. Aloft is the new hip W Hotels offshoot, with locations already planned for Downtown Brooklyn and Long Island City. The new Pearl Street megahotel, just down the block from this other crazy thing, will include "a public plaza, covered public pedestrian circulation space, ballrooms, conference facilities, and rooftop bar." Where once Manhattan's foundation as a world financial capital was laid, i-bankers will soon sip $12 cocktails from a glass box hundreds of feet in the air. Isn't that poetic?