Boston Properties Plans 49-Story Office Tower on Madison Avenue

Boston Properties has filed plans in New York City to build a 49-story office tower at 343 Madison Avenue in Midtown East, over the former site of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s headquarters.  

The permit applications for the property, located between East 44th and 45th Streets a block from Grand Central Terminal, represent a significant downsizing from original rezoning plans approved by the City Council in November 2021.

The original proposal for the site called for a 1,050-foot, 55-story “supertall” that would have yielded 833K SF of office space, more than 5K SF of retail space and 5.4K SF of subterranean connections to Grand Central.

The plans that were filed this month envision a 780-foot-tall building with about 750K SF of commercial space, according to a report in NewYorkYimby. 

The steel-based structure will have three loading docks and multiple basement levels. The ground floor of the new building, which is being designed by Kohn Pederson Fox, will have retail space. Construction on the new tower at 343 Madison is expected to be completed by 2026.

Demolition began at the end of last year to remove three buildings on the site, including a 15-story building that once housed the MTA headquarters.

In 2013, the MTA began seeking bids to demolish and rebuild the site, moving its offices to 2 Broadway. Boston Properties put in the winning bid in 2016, but the project was stalled as the MTA and the NYC Mayor’s Office argued over whether the MTA would directly receive all of the revenue generated by a 99-year-ground lease for the property, estimated at $1.3B.

In 2020, an agreement was reached that would route $600M from the project through the city to help fund the MTA’s unfinished $2.66B capital improvement plan.

Capital improvements that will be partially funded by the Madison Avenue project in widening stairs on several subway platforms in Grand Central, as well as extending the passageway for the 7 train.

Manhattan’s Midtown office market ended Q2 2022 with 1.05M SF of positive absorption, the highest quarter of positive absorption since Q4 2018, according to a market report from Colliers.

Demand in Midtown has increased by nearly 90% since Q2 2021, Colliers reported. The market’s availability rate tightened to 16.4%, the largest quarterly drop since 2018. Midtown’s asking rent average remained stable during Q2 at about $79.60 per SF.