Rendering via MVVA and the Hudson Yards Development Corporation

To make room for New York City’s most expensive park project ever, a handful of properties near the Hudson Yards site face demolition. One of those buildings is Affirmation Arts, a gallery on West 37th run by William Hillman. According to THE CITY, Hillman said he is willing to give his building to the city for free, on the condition it remains a cultural center. “I would like to give this building to the people of New York City to share with the world,” Hillman said during a hearing Tuesday.

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Rendering courtesy of Related/Oxford.

The $20 billion, 28-acre Hudson Yards megaproject has been in the news recently as its official March 15 grand opening approaches. The New York Times reports that the nation’s largest residential development has gotten more than a little financial help from the city government to get there. In fact, public records–and a recent study by the New School–reveal that the development has received nearly $6 billion in the form of tax breaks and additional government assistance, twice the controversial $3 billion in incentives held out to Amazon to entice the retail tech giant to bring its second headquarters to Queens.

That’s a pretty big break

Thomas Heatherwick’s 150-foot-tall, honeycomb-shaped climbable public art installation at Hudson Yards is set to open for public climbing in March along with the complex’s Shops and Restaurants on March 15. Known for some time as “The Vessel,” the bronzed steel and concrete structure has no official title as of yet. As for the former moniker, a Related representative told 6sqft in an email, “It was always a placeholder until the public experienced it. We’re excited to have the public help us with a name.”

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Rendering courtesy of Related/Oxford.

Though it seems hardly a week can go by without a flurry of news from Manhattan’s newest instant neighborhood, Hudson Yards, the west side mega-project–the largest private development in the nation’s history–developed by Related Companies and Oxford Propertied Group now has announced that Friday, March 15th will be its official opening date. In addition to a grand opening celebration, the Public Square and Gardens and the neighborhood’s centerpiece, Thomas Heatherwick’s “Vessel,” are set to open on that date; more importantly, The Shops and Restaurants at Hudson Yards will be officially open.

Off to quite a start

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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Rendering via Binyan Studios

A fresh set of renderings was revealed Wednesday of 35 Hudson Yards, the tallest residential tower in the rapidly developing Manhattan neighborhood. David Childs of Skidmore Owings & Merrill (SOM) designed the 92-story supertall, which topped out at 1,009 feet in June. The limestone and glass tower will contain 143 condos, 22,000 square feet of private amenities, and an Equinox club, spa, and 200-room hotel. Following 1,296-foot-tall 30 Hudson Yards, which topped out in July, neighboring 35 Hudson Yards is the second-tallest tower at the site.

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Rendering via MVVA and the Hudson Yards Development Corporation

The $374 million plan to extend green space at Hudson Yards would be the most expensive park project in New York City history, Crain’s reported Thursday. Last month, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced financing had been secured for the extension of Hudson Park and Boulevard, which currently runs between West 33rd and West 36th Streets. This funding allows the park to extend to West 39th Street.

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Phase 1 of Hudson Park & Boulevard via Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates

Financing has been secured for the extension of Hudson Park and Boulevard at Hudson Yards, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced Wednesday. The first phase of the park developed with the extension of the 7 subway line to 34th Street and opened in 2015. The extension, which is part of a $500 million investment, includes a three-acre park that will run over an Amtrak rail cut from West 36th Street to West 39th Street, between 10 and 11th Avenues. This addition expands the parkland at Hudson Yards by 75 percent.

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Rendering via B.ARCHs

A rendering has been released for a 32-story mixed-use building in the Hudson Yards area, between 36th and 37th Streets. The owner of the three lots spanning those blocks? Gary Barnett’s Extell Development, the same group behind the neighborhood’s 610-foot tall 555Ten. CityRealty uncovered the image from BARCHs, a New York-based architecture firm which describes the possible project as providing “residential, retail and parking uses to this rapidly developing neighborhood.”

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Sky lounge floating high above the Lincoln Tunnel entrance at AC Hudson Yards Hotel (Credit: Danny Forster Design Studio).

Last year, 6sqft reported that demolition permits were filed by developer Arisa Realty to make way for a hotel that will rise amidst the rapidly-growing Hudson Yards development in far west Midtown, with Epstein Global listed as the architect of record. Now, CityRealty reports that preliminary renderings have appeared on the website of Danny Forster, host of the Discovery Channel show “Build It Bigger,” who is working with the architects on the project’s design. Plans have beens submitted for a 220-key, 120,000-square-foot hotel at 432 West 31st Street, and the the unconfirmed renderings refer to the AC Hotel Hudson Yards (Marriott AC is a subsidiary of Marriott Hotels for which the Hudson Yards hotel would represent one of the first forays into the U.S. market).

Renderings this way