Photo by Colin Dennison for LGA on Facebook

The first new gates in LaGuardia Airport‘s Terminal B will open this Saturday, Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced earlier today. The opening will inaugurate the first of two concourses and 11 of the 35 total gates that will service Air Canada, American Airlines, Southwest Airlines, and United Airlines. This is the first phase of Cuomo’s larger $8 billion overhaul to create “a whole new LaGuardia.” The new concourse will feature retail space, a “food hall,” complete with local mini-chains like Shake Shack, Irving Farm coffee, and La Chula taqueria, as well as an indoor park (a design feature Cuomo is also implementing at JFK).

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If hanging out at 900 feet in the air isn’t your thing, NYC’s newest neighborhood, Hudson Yards, promises plenty of fun things to do with your feet on the ground.  As the first phase of the megaproject prepares to open this spring, New York-based design studio Snarkitecture will be introducing Snark Park, its first permanent exhibition space in Hudson Yards. Known for their clever reinterpretations of the familiar, Snarkitecture’s Snark Park will be a site for immersive installations housing design environments for all ages to explore, discover and enjoy.

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The New York Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC) has filed permits to construct a 22-floor tech hub at 114 East 14th Street near Union Square, CityRealty reports. Officially known as the Union Square Tech Training Center, the 254,000-square-foot, $250 million, facility has big plans to ramp up NYC’s high-tech firepower: In addition to affordable office space for startups, market-rate office space for tech companies, and a retail and market area run by Urbanspace, the nonprofit Civic Hall will be running a new digital skills training center at the midblock site once occupied by a PC Richard & Son electronics store.

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In August, four months after topping out, Jeanne Gang’s High Line-adjacent tower at 40 Tenth Avenue had its geometric glass installed. Images released by Studio Gang showed the 10-story office building taking shape and showed off its unique glazing system on the lower levels. Now, Aurora Capital Associates and William Gottlieb Real Estate, the project’s developers, are offering new renderings of the building itself and its future office spaces for a new view of the “solar carve” that the building has been known for (h/t Curbed).

More new angles, this way

First reported by CityRealty, Oxford Properties Group filed a building permit application yesterday to construct a 588,000-square-foot commercial addition to the St. John’s Terminal building in Hudson Square, a property they acquired in January. As 6sqft previously reported, architecture firm COOKFOX will helm the conversion and it is expected that Google will buy or lease the building, which is projected to be finished in 2022. If Google sticks to this plan — in addition to their forthcoming expansions at Pier 57 and Chelsea Market — the tech giant would double their employee force in the area to roughly 20,000. (This announcement follows that of Amazon’s impending expansion at a similar scale in Long Island City.)

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The first phase of the Hudson Yards megaproject, including the public square and gardens and its centerpiece, Vessel, as well as The Shops & Restaurants at Hudson Yards, anchored by NYC’s first Neiman Marcus store, is preparing to open this spring. Now, Fifteen Hudson Yards has revealed Skytop, the highest outdoor residential space in NYC at 900 feet in the air, and an equally dizzying suite of amenities for residents at the Rockwell Group and Diller Scofidio + Renfro-designed 88-story tower.

Cast your eyes heavenward

Nearly a year ago, we got our first look at the glassy box that would replace the Lower East Side‘s formerly iconic Sunshine Cinema. And now, developer East End Capital has launched an official website to market the office spaces at 141 East Houston Street that includes a trio of new renderings. First uncovered by CityRealty, not only do they show an interior commercial space and the ground-level retail, but they reveal “Houston Alleyway,” a new green-walled passageway that will run south from Houston Street.

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Image: Maxpixel CC public domain.

On the heels of news that Amazon has chosen Long Island City, Queens for one of its two new headquarters, making the promise of 25,000 new jobs a hopefully-someday reality, comes the fine print request that the company would like a helipad for its new East River waterfront HQ, please. Slate reports that the request appears deep in a 32-page memorandum of understanding with the city and state.

Rooftop helipads have been banned since 9/11

Rendering of Plaxall’s proposed (but not yet approved) mixed-use LIC project courtesy of WXY architecture + urban design

Amazon officially announced on Tuesday its plan to bring its second headquarters to Long Island City, following a 14-month long contest among hundreds of cities across the country. The company will also open a second new headquarters in Arlington, Virginia, with each location expected to house 25,000 new employees; Nashville will become home to Amazon’s “Operations Center of Excellence,” equipped for 5,000 full-time jobs. In Queens, Amazon intends to construct the mixed-use complex across both public and private sites that sit along the East River, in an area known as Anable Basin. Although the HQ2 project still must undergo a public and environmental review, as well as a possible rezoning, the tech company said it will receive over $1.7 billion in incentives from New York State for its project, which is expected to cost over $3.6 billion, and has the potential for another $1.3 billion “as-of-right” benefits from New York City.

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270 Park Avenue enclosed public space (with action); image from City Planning.

In late October, JPMorgan Chase announced the selection of Foster + Partners, led by British Pritzker Prize winner Norman Foster, as the architects of a new 70-story headquarters on the site of its current offices at 270 Park Avenue between East 47th and 48th streets, CityRealty reports. The plan, announced in February, represents the first major project under the 2017 Midtown East Rezoning Plan that upzoned 78 blocks of Midtown to allow for the construction of larger, more modern skyscrapers. The 70-floor, 1,400-foot height would make the new headquarters one of the tallest buildings in the city and the tallest office building by roof height.

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