Renderings of 460 Tenth Avenue credit to Sherwood Equities
The forever up-and-coming Far West Side, specifically the no-man's land east of the Javits Center and north of
Hudson Yards, has been slowly transforming into a sought-after neighborhood. The area counts four primary north-south thoroughfares, plus a new Park Avenue-inspired boulevard in the works.
Tenth Avenue and the hostile Dyer Avenue cut historically separated the densely developed areas of the Garment District to the east and the low-scaled industrial uses and vacant lots to the west. Before a game-changing rezoning by the Bloomberg administration in 2005, the blocks in the 30s west of Tenth were defined by dilapidated buildings, auto shops, parking lots, and rail yards, with only the fortress-like Javits Center walling off the Hudson River waterfront. The mix also included old loft buildings, humble tenements, and a few elevatored pre-war co-ops along 34th Street.
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Despite its still low-key stature, Tenth Avenue is the busiest of the West Side avenues due to its direct flow from the West Side Highway at 22nd Street, running north as Amsterdam Avenue (after 59th Street) to St. George Hill in Washington Heights. With Ninth Avenue already getting a fair share of infill developments over the years, including a mix of rentals, hotels, and more recently, some condos, developers are turning their sights beyond the Dyer Avenue cut to Tenth Avenue, In recent years, this area has been further ignited by the completion of the first phase of Related-Oxford's Hudson Yards and Brookfield's Manhattan West complex.
In the years to come, the avenue will see at least two major towers: 460 Tenth Avenue, a long-planned condominium project steered by Sherwood Equities, and 360 Tenth Avenue, a state-of-the-art, Class A office tower conceived by McCourt Global. While the timeline for the 360 Tenth Avenue office remains unclear, with the paddle players of Reserve Padel still in full swing, five blocks north, between West 35th and 36th streets at Sherwood appears to finally be moving forward on a 40-story residential tower to deliver over 200 condominium residences in addition to ground-floor retail and underground parking.
Sherwood Equities, led by president and CEO Jeff Katz, purchased the nearly full-block parking lot in the early 1990s. The developer has been waiting for the right market conditions and for the area to find its footing. The firm was even hoping to start in 2007, but then of course, the bottom fell out of the economy the year after. The company has already finished several residential condos, including 500 West 21st Street, 1600 Broadway, The Coronado, and The Saratoga. The developer also owned a large site at the northwest corner of 34th Street and Tenth Avenue, now home to The Spiral office tower.
Construction permits have yet to be filed, but according to the developer, the project is now in the design phase with Handel Architects helming the design. The first renderings, published on Sherwood's website, depict a standard tower-on-podium massing, which local zoning prescribes. The boxy form will be articulated by multi-pane windows overlaid by a grid of masonry-colored vertical and spandrel elements placed every two floors. The overdone design feature is meant to hide the building's true height, but usually only makes the building more confusing to comprehend (Sutton Tower) while clashing with its neighbors on the skyline.
Fortunately, the walk-up building on the corner of 35th Street, which houses the bar and restaurant Friedman's Hell's Kitchen, has resisted selling. The ornate red-brick building maintains some human-scale charm in the monumentally scaled area. Other promising aspects of Sherwood's project include a multi-leveled roof terrace above the seventh floor. The floors it fronts likely hold the many amenities to be provided to residents. Lastly, the enclosed rooftop bulkhead with architectural embellishments may help the tower stand out from the increasing monotony of the area's new buildings.
Tenth Avenue looking north from 460 Tenth Avenue
460 Tenth Avenue will join a string of new residential rental towers that include The Set and Coterie Hudson Yards—a senior housing luxury rental hybrid from Related, 555 TEN by Extell Development, and the soon-to-launch rental The Maybury at 550 Tenth Avenue developed by Gotham Organization.
Sherwood will not have much competition selling units since, outside of Hudson Yards proper, condominium units remain quite rare. However, also in the works for the area are several mid-scale condo buildings underway by Long Island-based ZD Jasper Realty at 439 West 36th Street, and at 489 and 501 Ninth Avenue.
Sherwood will not have much competition selling units since, outside of Hudson Yards proper, condominium units remain quite rare. However, also in the works for the area are several mid-scale condo buildings underway by Long Island-based ZD Jasper Realty at 439 West 36th Street, and at 489 and 501 Ninth Avenue.
Rendering of new Tenth Avenue facade of Wells Fargo's expansion in Hudson Yards (Wells Fargo)
While Related-Oxford's Hudson Yards initially turned its back to the car-oriented avenue, some relief from its scale-less unarticulated walls will come when the former Neiman Marcus department store occupying part of the seven-story podium is converted to new office space anchored by Wells Fargo. The former austere elevation will get a new glass curtain wall and entracence, which should be slightly less oppressive to passersby.
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