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March 25, 2009
Beekman St. chop shop
Last week, news leaked out that Forest City Ratner might be considering chopping the Frank Gehry-designed Beekman Tower in half, to top out at a mere 38 stories. If this news is true, the "Beekman Tower" probably warrants a name change: Beekman St. Stump, The FiDi Meltdown?
Here's the latest online buzz:
Curbed, Pondering a Glass of Gehry Half Empty in FiDi
The image of the Beekman Tower at right popped up in the Curbed Photo Pool and caught our eye. Writes the FiDi-residing contributor:
There's this gehry tower going up outside our window that I've been tracking. Not that I idolize frank gehry, but I've been excited about it, in large part because the rest of our view is comprised of these horrible horrible federal and municipal buildings.
The news last week was that they're going to stop construction on the tower at the current floor, and that the tower is going to be 38 floors instead of 76. Why? BAD ECONOMY.
So depressing, the resulting building is just going to be a huge, shiny, stumpy thing.
Which, apparently, is worse than a huge, shiny, wavy thing.
Fast Company, Why Starchitect Skyscrapers like Frank Gehry's Beekman Are Getting Chopped
It seems that the Beekman Stump is part of a trend.
Will a stunted economy leave us with stunted cities? Reduced building heights have become an unfortunate reality for a faltering construction industry, as architects are seeing their projects slashed in half, some mid-construction. This week it was announced that Frank Gehry (who's not having the best 80th birthday year so far) will lose the top half of his Beekman Tower, in lower Manhattan.
...
But Gehry's lucky his building is getting finished at all, short or not. A study published yesterday noted that construction has been halted on 11% of the 1,324 tall skyscraper residential and mixed-used projects around the world as developers scramble to locate the necessary funds to top out their projects.
ArtInfo.com, Construction of Gehry Tower Put on Hold
We're pretty sure that no news organizations actually reported that construction was "put on hold," as the headline suggests, only that a permit has been issued to designate the 38th story as the roof.
Construction of a Frank Gehry tower in lower Manhattan has been put on hold pending an evaluation of costs, Crain's reports.
Half of the Beekman Tower's intended 76 floors have been constructed so far. Developer Forest City Ratner Cos. has indicated that work will proceed on the lower stories, but that for the time being no additional floors will be built. ...
Construction of the Beekman tower began in 2006. In 2008, Forest City Ratner Cos. closed a deal for $680 million in financing for the project. At the time, it was seen as one of the few construction projects in the city to buck the overall real estate slowdown.
Posted by lumi at March 25, 2009 5:51 AM