Brookfield to Start $200M Redevelopment of NYC’s 450 W. 33rd St.

Brookfield Office Properties is giving 450 W. 33rd St. in New York City a $200 million makeover, modernizing it and integrating it with the firm’s $4.5 billion, 7 million-square-foot Manhattan West mixed-use project.

By Gail Kalinoski, Contributing Editor

450 W 33rd St

Brookfield Office Properties is giving 450 West 33rd St. in New York City a $200 million makeover, modernizing it and integrating it with the firm’s $4.5 billion, 7 million-square-foot Manhattan West mixed-use project.

Work on the 16-story, 1.8 million-square-foot building, which will be renamed Five Manhattan West, will take place this spring and finish in summer 2016. Manhattan West is already under construction in the Hudson Yards district one block west of Penn Station and across from the Moynihan Station on city’s West Side. Manhattan West’s $680 million first phase kicked off in January 2013, when Brookfield began installing a platform over the Hudson rail yards. The platform should be completed later this year.

450 W. 33rd St. was acquired by Brookfield in 2011. Built in 1969, it was last renovated in 2003. The building’s precast concrete facade will be replaced with a “pleated” glass curtain that will create floor-to-ceiling windows on every floor. Interior renovations will include updating and expanding the lobby to “create an art gallery feel.” Six elevators will be added to the existing 10 and the HVAC and other mechanical systems will also be upgraded. Retail space on the ground level will be expanded.

The building, which has a current occupancy of 77 percent, is one of eight buildings in Manhattan with more than 100,000 square feet of contiguous space on a single floor.

“The building’s unique mix of high ceilings and large, open floor plates are especially attractive to companies seeking this type of collaborative ‘loft-like’ space,” Dennis Friedrich, Brookfield CEO, said in a news release.

Brookfield and the firm’s exclusive leasing agents – a Cushman & Wakefield team led by Bruce Mosler and Josh Kuriloff – hope to attract technology and media companies that have been shut out of the hot Manhattan South submarket. The large floor plates are also attractive to financial companies.

Current tenants, who include Associated Press, WNET and Coach, will be able to remain in the building during the redevelopment. However, Coach will eventually be leaving 450 West 33rd St. for a new office building in Related Cos.’ massive Hudson Yards development. The luxury goods company announced in November 2011 that it was taking 600,000 square feet in a planned 51-story, 1.7 million-square-foot building in Hudson Yards, the 300-acre mixed-use project that will include 6 million square feet of office space, nine residential buildings and a retail complex.

Brookfield’s Manhattan West campus will include two office towers, a luxury residential tower, retail and a two-acre park. It will also have a boutique hotel, health and fitness facilities, rooftop gardens and numerous restaurants.

“Manhattan West is a vital mixed-use real estate development and the redeveloped 450 W. 33rd Street gives the urban campus even greater depth and diversity,” Friedrich said.

REX is the architectural firm in charge of the redevelopment at 450 W. 33rd St. Adamson Associates is the executive architect on the project and Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, L.L.P. is the structural engineer.

Brookfield owns, develops and manages premier office properties in the United States, Canada, Australia and the United Kingdom. Its portfolio is comprised of 114 properties totaling 85 million square feet.