Last week saw the second major groundbreaking on the west side of midtown Manhattan in the last two months, as the $4.5 billion "Manhattan West" project’s first phase officially began.
Just last month, "the largest private real estate development in the history of New York" broke ground on the far west side of Manhattan. Now comes news that, just a few blocks east of Related's Hudson Yards "mini-city", "Brookfield Properties’ trio of new SOM-designed towers comprising the Manhattan West development" has started construction atop train tracks just west of Penn Station and the Farley Post Office building, reports Branden Klayko.
At the grounbreaking ceremony, Mayor Bloomberg remarked that, “From Battery Park to Riverside Park, it’s just amazing how much development there has been all along the west side; an area everybody thought did not have the potential to become a hot neighborhood. Manhattan West will be a prime location in which to live or work, a vital piece of the mixed-use community we’ve envisioned for the Hudson Yards area, which is beginning to take shape.”
"Twin office towers with retail space will anchor the corners of the site, each with two million square feet of office space, and a third residential building will be built along West 31st Street for a total of 5.4 million square feet of space." notes Klayko. "In addition to the three towers, Manhattan West also calls for a 100-foot-wide swatch of new public space between the office towers built on the new platform. High Line designers James Corner Field Operations will design the new 1.5-acre landscape, which is imagined as a recreated 32nd Street forming a pedestrian link with Hudson Yards and park amenities farther west."
The complex choreography that will allow the platform and towers to be built atop the now-exposed tracks, while trains continue to operate is illustrated in the video below:
FULL STORY: Manhattan West’s Railyard-Spanning Platform Breaks Ground

Planetizen Federal Action Tracker
A weekly monitor of how Trump’s orders and actions are impacting planners and planning in America.

Chicago’s Ghost Rails
Just beneath the surface of the modern city lie the remnants of its expansive early 20th-century streetcar system.

Amtrak Cutting Jobs, Funding to High-Speed Rail
The agency plans to cut 10 percent of its workforce and has confirmed it will not fund new high-speed rail projects.

Ohio Forces Data Centers to Prepay for Power
Utilities are calling on states to hold data center operators responsible for new energy demands to prevent leaving consumers on the hook for their bills.

MARTA CEO Steps Down Amid Citizenship Concerns
MARTA’s board announced Thursday that its chief, who is from Canada, is resigning due to questions about his immigration status.

Silicon Valley ‘Bike Superhighway’ Awarded $14M State Grant
A Caltrans grant brings the 10-mile Central Bikeway project connecting Santa Clara and East San Jose closer to fruition.
Urban Design for Planners 1: Software Tools
This six-course series explores essential urban design concepts using open source software and equips planners with the tools they need to participate fully in the urban design process.
Planning for Universal Design
Learn the tools for implementing Universal Design in planning regulations.
Caltrans
City of Fort Worth
Mpact (founded as Rail~Volution)
City of Camden Redevelopment Agency
City of Astoria
City of Portland
City of Laramie