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Hudson Yards’s cultural center, the Shed, just got a major boost from former New York City Mayor, Michael Bloomberg, and is now just about $80 million shy of its $500 million capital campaign, the New York Times reports.
Most recently, Bloomberg contributed $60 million to the Shed, which is in addition to the previously undisclosed $15 million he contributed to the cultural center in 2012, according to the Times.
Bloomberg has been a driving force behind the the overall Hudson Yards megadevelopment, and the man who served as his deputy mayor, Daniel L. Doctoroff is also the president and chairman of the Shed.
Before he left office, Bloomberg also made a public appropriation worth $50 million to the Shed (that has since gone up to $75 million), which as the Times notes, was the largest cultural capital grant that year.
The project has made steady progress since construction got underway in 2015. The eight-story structure was already several floors above ground last fall, and appeared to have already been fitted with part of its quirky retractable exterior last month.
Designed by Diller Scofidio & Renfro along with the Rockwell Group, this $435 million project will create one of the biggest new cultural destinations in the city in quite some time. The retractable shell will essentially allow this building to expand and contract in size based on the needs of a particular exhibition or event. When closed the Shed will have a hall that can seat 1,200 people, and when left open a 20,000-square-foot plaza for outdoor events. There’s even space for a 500-seat black box theater.
The first visual art commission here will be a massive piece by Lawrence Weiner created with paving stones and located in the Shed’s plaza. Construction on the project is supposed to wrap in the spring of 2019.