76 8th Avenue (Credit: Plus Development)
By now, the aesthetically-challenged office of Gene Kaufman Architects (GKA) has blighted the city's streetscape more than any other living architect today. However, one project underway at 76 Eighth Avenue stands counter to the scores of cartoon-like hotel buildings the firm has designed over the years, some of which are now fittingly being used as homeless shelters. Going up at the southeast corner of Eighth Avenue and West 14th Street is a a 35,000-square-foot commercial building to rise ten stories high. Designed in collaboration with Raad Studio and Plus Design Studio, the project's quiet grace lies in its less-is-more Modernist vocabulary of black I-beams and expansive glass panes.
The project rises in a mixed-use transit-rich area found at the junction of the West Village, Chelsea, and the Meatpacking District. While the glossy design may seem out of place in an area largely cherished for its low scale, charm, and pre-war architecture, the area's variety of uses and blue-collar history could deem this design appropriate to some. Across from the project are two Neoclassical banks, one now the home of the Museum of Illusions and the other a CVS drug store that once held a Balducci's market. Directly south of the project is the undulating glass building One Jackson Square. which has two condos available from $2.5M
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76 Eighth is being spearheaded by Noviprop and Plus Development who received a $40 million construction loan in spring 2019. The building will feature ground-floor retail and nine floors of office space. The building will set back 12 feet on the sixth floor where a private terrace can be enjoyed by the floor's users. Topping the 120-foot structure will be a common rooftop garden and communal workspace available to all tenants. The building was to welcome tenants this year but the pandemic has likely extended the construction timeline. A July site visit shows the steel frame several floors out of the ground.
A 2019 article in The Real Deal explains, "The office market in the Meatpacking District has been heating up ever since Google first entered the neighborhood back in 2005 with a lease for 111 Eighth Avenue." Over the last three decades, the area's once-industrial-oriented streets have seen a steady flow of residential conversions, condos, and more recently, office towers. A few doors west down 14th Street is a modern boutique office building opened last year at 348 West 14th Street. At 61 Ninth Avenue in the Meatpacking District, Vornado opened a large gridded office building designed by Vinoly Architects.
A 2019 article in The Real Deal explains, "The office market in the Meatpacking District has been heating up ever since Google first entered the neighborhood back in 2005 with a lease for 111 Eighth Avenue." Over the last three decades, the area's once-industrial-oriented streets have seen a steady flow of residential conversions, condos, and more recently, office towers. A few doors west down 14th Street is a modern boutique office building opened last year at 348 West 14th Street. At 61 Ninth Avenue in the Meatpacking District, Vornado opened a large gridded office building designed by Vinoly Architects.
rendering of 76 Eighth Avenue from the southwest (Credit: Plus Development)
The entrance along 14th Street (Plus Development Group)
GKA's original design. We finally dodged a bullet. (Gene Kaufman Architects)
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