As design proposals come in for the Hudson Yards development site in Manhattan, Peter Slatin writes that this project more than any other has the potential to bolster the economic power of New York City in a huge way.
"The particulars of the proposals that at least five development teams will deposit on Oct. 11 with New York's Metropolitan Transportation Authority are sure to differ somewhat in their respective visions of the future of Manhattan's gritty, 28-acre Hudson Yards district. But the plans will certainly all be powered by the same overriding conceptual engine: this contested site is – no pressure, folks – intended to set Manhattan on course for the 21st century and save the city from global obsolescence."
"Large and raw, Hudson Yards isn't just another development parcel. It's a very real and potent extension of what is already the nation's largest, wealthiest and most powerful Central Business District. It's a new piece of, not just a new adjacency to, the market that is the very definition of high barrier to entry. But even before a piling has been driven in what will likely be the $1 billion-dollar decking over of the rail cut that is Hudson Yards itself (not to mention the likely $1 billion price tag for ownership), the site bears the expectations of many constituencies: City Hall and Albany, the would-be developers, the larger real estate industry and the city's business interests, and of the local and regional community."
"The entire redevelopment district, which is larger than the site immediately in question, holds out the potential to engender business and economic development on a grand scale and even resolve, through new mass transit, commuter and freight rail and trans-Hudson connections, some of the terribly difficult infrastructure challenges faced by the entire metropolitan region and especially the city."
FULL STORY: THE NEXT NEW YORK
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