Midtown Tower Plan Draws High-Profile Ire

NEW YORK CITY-Days before it’s due to be considered by a key City Council subcommittee, Vornado Realty Trust’s plan to build a 67-story office tower on the current site of the Hotel Pennsylvania is drawing protest from one of its future neighbors. That would be Empire State Building Co. LLC, which is none too pleased about the proposed tower’s proximity to the landmarked Fifth Avenue property.

In a letter dated Wednesday to Council Member Mark Weprin, chair of the Subcommittee on Zoning and Franchises, the principals of Empire State Building Co. and Malkin Holdings assert that the proposed height and mass of Vornado’s 15 Penn Plaza, located about 1,000 feet southwest of ESB, “will permanently damage the beauty and distinction of the city’s skyline, our city’s and country’s public face to the world.”

The letter, under the signature of chairman Peter Malkin and president Anthony Malkin, continues, “This is not about banning tall buildings in the city, but about observing and preserving the very historic uniqueness and beauty of the city’s skyline by not allowing a massive building made possible only through waivers and bonuses in such close proximity to a landmarked building to defile and destroy ESB and our skyline.”

Vornado’s plans call for either a single-tenant, 1,190-foot-tall tower of 2.8 million square feet—slightly smaller than ESB’s gross buildable area—or a multi-tenant tower that would contain about 155,000 fewer square feet but would add 26 feet to its height. Absent rezoning approvals, the REIT could choose to develop a smaller as-of-right tower on the site, according to the Final Environmental Impact Statement submitted last month. No start date has been set, and Vornado has said the project would be developed an an unspecified future date.

Although Manhattan’s Community Board 5 voted 36-1 against 15 Penn Plaza in April, the City Planning Commission later gave the project its blessing. So did Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer, albeit with some conditions.

The Regional Plan Association also weighed in with its approval for 15 Penn Plaza. “In RPA’s view, 15 Penn Plaza will bring us a step closer to building a new transit-oriented, economically efficient and, by virtue of its future dependence on mass transit, environmentally sustainable district,” the association said in prepared testimony before CB5.

“The same City Planning Commission which has forwarded this monstrosity to the City Council for approval agreed that the skyline must be considered when it rejected the proposed 1,250-foot MoMA tower on East 53rd Street,” the Malkins wrote in their letter to Weprin. In the case of the East 53rd tower, which would be developed by the Museum of Modern Art and Houston-based Hines, the commission required that the property’s height be reduced from 1,250 feet to 1,025. The full City Council approved the smaller-scale MoMA project this past October.

In their letter, the Malkins request that “the negative impacts of 15 Penn Plaza” be considered, that the project be reduced in height “so as not to adversely impact the skyline” and that Vornado prepare a full Draft Environmental Impact Statement for any proposed changes in the project, “especially those that would increase the height or bulk of 15 Penn Plaza or would have potential impacts on traffic.” Through a spokesman, Vornado declined to comment.