JPMorgan Chase files plans for 1,300-foot Midtown HQ

Now that the city has approved JPMorgan Chase’s plans to demolish 270 Park Avenue—aka the Union Carbide Building—and replace it with a supertall skyscraper, the baking giant is moving the project forward. New York YIMBY reports that Chase has now filed plans for the new skyscraper with the Department of Buildings.

The plans on file do contain one small nugget of information that differs from what’s previously been reported: While the new building, to be designed by Foster + Partners, will still be a supertall, it’s lost a bit of height. According to the documents filed with DOB, it’ll stand 1,322 feet tall, rather than close to 1,400 feet.

In May, the city gave Chase the green light to replace the existing building at 270 Park Avenue with a new HQ that will consolidate all of the company’s employees in one place. It’ll come with a 10,000-square-foot, privately owned public space (which Chase originally tried to shrink to 7,000 square feet, and was summarily shot down), along with $42 million in investment towards pedestrian and transit upgrades. It’s one of the first projects to move forward in the wake of the 2017 Midtown East rezoning.

But preservationists decried the plan, which will lead to the loss of the Skidmore, Owings, & Merrill-designed tower that currently stands on the site. The building was designed by Gordon Bunshaft and Natalie de Blois, and “a superlative example of what Ada Louise Huxtable named ‘The Park Avenue School of Architecture’ in 1957,” according to Curbed’s architecture critic Alexandra Lange. Despite attempts to save the building, the Landmarks Preservation Commission declined to consider it for landmark status.

According to YIMBY, demolition work on the current structure is already underway.