Midtown East could get another supertall on Park Avenue

Nearly two years after the Midtown East rezoning passed, a bevy of developers—including Macklowe Properties and TF Cornerstone—have pounced on the opportunity to build bigger office towers within that neighborhood.

Vornado/Rudin

Now, two more may be getting in on the act: Vornado Realty Trust and Rudin Management have reportedly partnered to transform the 30-story building at 350 Park Avenue (currently managed by the former) into a 1,450-foot supertall that would loom over Midtown. The New York Post reported on the potential partnership last month, but a brochure provided to Curbed shows renderings and specs for the possible skyscraper.

Those renderings show a supertall tower with a series of setbacks along its facade, which would create terraces for tenants as well as “sky lounges” within the tower itself. The building could have a “sky bar” and restaurants, as well as a porte cochere, art gallery, and more amenities at the ground floor level. It’d have close to 1.7 million square feet of space for tenants, with more than 50,000 square feet reserved for other amenities.

Its proposed height—1,450 feet to the top of its spire—would make it taller than One Vanderbilt, which is currently on the rise. (But Harry Macklowe’s proposed cloud-piercer on Fifth Avenue, which has come to be known as Tower Fifth, would still best it by about 100 feet.) In order to build, the developers would likely have to demolish two buildings: Vornado’s block-long 350 Park Avenue, which was designed by Emery Roth & Sons, and Rudin’s 40 East 52nd Street, currently the HQ for BlackRock (which will move to Hudson Yards in the next few years).

All of this, of course, would be contingent on the tower actually rising—and right now, plans are purely speculative. As the Real Deal notes, no plans have been filed with the Department of Buildings, and a source told that publication that Vornado and Rudin could very well decide to redevelop its properties separately.

But if it does become a reality, it’d join several new developments that have been announced since the Midtown East rezoning went into effect. In addition to Macklowe’s pie-in-the-sky Tower Fifth, those include the transformation of the Grand Hyatt hotel next to Grand Central Terminal, which may span around 2 million square feet, and the massive skyscraper that will replace the former Union Carbide building at 270 Park Avenue. Plans for the former have yet to be filed with the DOB, but the latter is making progress; JP Morgan Chase filed demolition plans with the DOB last year.