Manhattan’s far west side, home to massive mixed-use developments including Related Cos.’ Hudson Yards, Brookfield Properties’ Manhattan West and Vornado Realty Trust’s Penn District, has become more connected and pedestrian friendly as part of the neighborhood’s transformation.
The $50 million Moynihan Connector comprises two bridges running above Dyer Avenue and West 30th Street. Designed by architecture firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill and James Corner Field Operations, the project has opened offically to link Moynihan Train Hall at the Penn Station transit hub to the public spaces of Manhattan West and the High Line elevated park, a popular tourist attraction that’s already connected to Hudson Yards.
“As the latest chapter in the evolution of Midtown West, the Connector forms a link between a series of civic spaces all the way from Midtown West to the West Village,” where the other side of the High Line ends, SOM and James Corner, an urban design and landscape architecture firm, said Wednesday in a statement. The project, led by Empire State Development, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, Brookfield Properties and Friends of the High Line, is part of “a long-standing vision to create safer, more enjoyable pedestrian access, connect people to transit, and seamlessly link public open spaces and other community assets in the neighborhood,” SOM and James Corner said.
The so-called connector is the fourth major SOM project in the area’s bid to transform from an industrial site to a thriving retail, residential, hotel, entertainment and office destination that counts among such office tenants as Facebook parent Meta, retail giant Amazon, and investment firms KKR and BlackRock.
SOM designed Moynihan Train Hall and redeveloped the historic James A. Farley post office building that houses tech office space that Meta leases from Vornado. It also has designed the 1,000-foot-tall mixed-used 35 Hudson Yards luxury residential tower for Related as well as doing the design and master plan for the 7 million-square-foot, mixed-use Manhattan West.
With well-resourced office tenants seeking desirable office space that they hope will help them attract and keep talent, the area’s access to the High Line is part of the appeal as outdoor access is among valued features, industry executives have said.
A case in point, as New York’s first-quarter office vacancy rate reached a record high, Hudson Yards’ average direct asking rent of $144 was the highest among all Manhattan neighborhoods and above the city average of $82.50, according to a JLL study.