The redevelopment of the World Trade Center is likely the most arduous, complex, drawn-out megaproject in the city. Rebuilding the site has been fraught with everything from funding troubles (3 WTC, now complete), architect switches (2 WTC), and perennial delays (Santiago Calatrava’s skeletal winged transportation hub, which finally opened in 2016). But 18 years after 9/11, much of the complex—including the 1,776-foot One WTC and the 9/11 Memorial and Museum—is open to the public again. What’s left: 2 WTC still needs an anchor tenant; an RFP has been issued for 5WTC; the St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church is under construction, but has been waylaid by financial issues; and the WTC Performing Arts Center, now known as the Perelman, is under construction.

The Seward Park Urban Renewal Area’s Moses-era legacy of failure is finally a thing of the past, as Essex Crossing continues its steady stream of progress. The 1.65 million-square-foot project will include 1,079 apartments in buildings designed by SHoP, Handel, Beyer Blinder Belle, CetraRuddy, and Dattner. Residents began moving in to the megaproject in 2018. This year, an enormous food bazaar called the Market Line and a bowling alley will open, while the new International Center of Photography flagship will debut in early 2020. Seven of the megaproject’s nine buildings are expected to be complete by the end of 2020.

This 28-acre megadevelopment is the product of a 2005 rezoning that paved the way for Special Hudson Yards District. Now, 14 years later, the megaproject’s first phase—with towers designed by the likes of Kohn Pedersen Fox, SOM, and Diller Scofidio + Renfro with David Rockwell—is open to the public. This first phase includes two condo towers (with very pricey apartments), office buildings, NYC’s highest observation deck (which is due to open later), a high-end mall, and a multi-disciplinary arts venue. The centerpiece is Thomas Heatherwick’s beehive-shaped “public landmark,” a 150-foot series of interconnected staircases.

In 2017, Ivy League university Cornell opened the first phase of its glassy, sustainable, public-space-prioritizing tech campus to a southern portion of Roosevelt Island. The first three buildings that opened include the world’s largest passive house residence, designed by Handel Architects, and the Bloomberg Center, designed by Morphosis. The multi-use development will eventually cover 2 million square feet and include academic and residential buildings, a hotel designed by Snøhetta (which will open in 2020), and a “tech walk,” or central campus.

There are several parts to the Upper West Side megaproject known as Riverside Center, an eight-acre development rising on an old industrial lot and exposed railyard between 59th and 61st streets on the west side. The project, conceived by developer Extell along with Dermot Campany, has been pocked by uncertainty from the get-go, but all five of its buildings are now under construction. The first two towers—Silverstein and Elad’s noted “poor door building,” and SLCE’s 43-story, 616-rental building at 21 West End Avenue—are closer to completion. In 2016, the last piece of the puzzle was reborn as Waterline Square, with trio of starchitect-designed towers. Richard Meier, Kohn Pedersen Fox, and Rafael Viñoly are behind the skyscrapers (which have already welcomed residents), while Mathews Nielsen Landscape Architects is designing a park that will connect all three buildings.

Bronx Point, the residential and retail project by L+M Development Partners and Type A Projects, will break ground in the first half of 2020. The large affordable housing development along the Harlem River in the Lower Concourse will bring 1,045 new units of permanent affordable housing, the Universal Hip-Hop Museum, a new waterfront esplanade and park connecting to Mill Pond Park, a public plaza, and a multiplex movie theater to the site. The project is being built out in two phases, the first of which is expected to be complete by 2022.

After a decade of delays, a giant municipal parking lot at the corner of 39th Avenue and 138th Street is finally giving rise to Flushing Commons. The 1.8 million-square-foot megaproject will bring 600 apartments, a YMCA, a 1,000-space underground parking garage, 1.5 acres of open space, and 350,000-square-feet of commercial space to the area. The buildings were designed by Perkins Eastman, Thomas Balsley Associates is the landscape architect, and Shim Projects is the interior designer. The entire project is slated to wrap up by 2020.

There may finally be some movement at the Willets Point redevelopment project near Citi Field: Last February, after more than 15 years of delays, the de Blasio administration announced it had struck a deal to break ground on a development plan for 1,100 units of affordable housing on six acres, while leaving a newly convened task force to reimagine the remaining 17 acres for the project’s first phase. Earlier this year, the city released two scenarios for the project, including one that could bring a 25,000-seat soccer stadium to the Queens neighborhood.

The much whispered about initiative to deck over 180 acres of rail yard bisecting parts of Long Island City and Sunnyside, creating Sunnyside Yard, was confirmed by the city in May when Amtrak and the MTA announced it tapped Vishaan Chakrabarti’s Practice for Architecture and Urbanism to create a master plan for the massive site. (Yes, massive is an appropriate adjective—it’s six and a half times the size of Hudson Yards.) PAU is expected to wrap up its master planning process in late 2019, giving specific vision to the neighborhood that could see the creation of 24,000 dwellings, 19 schools, and 52 acres of public park.

The 22-acre Greenpoint Landing megaproject is a collaboration between the Park Tower Group, L+M Development, and Brookfield Properties. Eventually, the development will see the creation of 5,500 apartments (1,400 of which will be affordable). Handel Architects designed the master plan for the megaproject. The three affordable buildings—at 5 Blue Slip, 7 Bell Slip, and 33 Eagle Street—are all complete. This megaproject will also include a massive waterfront park designed by James Corner Field Operations, and a new school serving pre-K through eighth grade, which will be located at the intersection of Franklin and Dupont Streets.

The Domino Sugar Refinery was once lauded as the face of megaprojects in New York City—and when it comes to Brooklyn, it sort of still is. SHoP replaced Rafael Viñoly as project architect in March 2013. Their plan for the site will bring five towers with 2,800 apartments—700 of which will be priced below market rate—and 631,000 square feet of office space to the South Williamsburg waterfront. James Corner Field Operations designed the expansive waterfront park, which opened in 2018, that includes an “artifact walk,” a playground, a bocce court, and more perks. Its first rental building, 325 Kent Avenue, welcomed residents in 2017; the second, One South First, began leasing in 2019.

To the northeast of Pacific Park is Downtown Brooklyn’s City Point, the mixed-use development rising around Flatbush Avenue Extension and Fulton Street that replaces the unsightly Albee Square Mall and parking garage. The development includes a new shopping center with an Alamo Drafthouse, Target, Trader Joe’s, and the DeKalb Market Hall. Several of its residential buildings are already open, while its biggest project—a 700-foot-tall condo tower developed by Extell, which launched sales in 2018—is currently under construction.

After well over a decade of planning, the megaproject formerly known as Atlantic Yards has made some progress, with more to come next year for the 22-acre development. Greenland Forest City Partners, one of the site’s major developers, will begin decking over the Long Island Rail Road tracks below the megaproject in 2020, which will allow work to begin on several major buildings, along with an eight-acre park. TF Cornerstone will develop two buildings with a total of 800 apartments, while Brodsky will work on two more, one of which—the project’s tallest tower at 18 Sixth Avenue—is under construction. So far, close to 800 of the project’s promised 2,250 affordable apartments have been constructed.

Industry City is in the process of reshaping the South Brooklyn waterfront. Its developers—a consortium of Belvedere Capital Real Estate Partners, Jamestown, and Angelo, Gordon & Co.—want to activate the full potential of this six million square foot campus, and are looking to rezone from a heavy manufacturing area into a light manufacturing one with retail, and two hotels. A planned rezoning of the area has proven controversial, with the developers most recently agreeing to delay the land use action and to work harder to address community concerns about gentrification.

The New York Wheel may be dead, but Staten Island’s massive outlet mall is now a reality. Empire Outlets, the city’s first outlet mall near the Staten Island Ferry Terminal, opened in May 2019, with shops from brands like Banana Republic, Nike, H&M, and Brooks Brothers.