Older site proposals Several developers and other entities proposed uses for the rail yard during the 20th century. In 1956,
William Zeckendorf suggested the construction of the "Freedom Tower", which would have risen , making it the tallest building in the world at the time. Transportation to the new complex would have been via a "passenger
conveyor belt" from further east in Midtown. Zeckendorf never purchased the rights, as he was unable to secure financing for the deal, given that large-scale speculative real estate projects were not an asset class that institutional investors and lenders took an interest in at the time. The administration of Mayor
Robert F. Wagner Jr. released a $670 million development plan in 1963, which was ultimately never realized. In the 1980s, both the
Jets and the
Yankees proposed new stadiums above the rails, though none of these projects succeeded. Another ultimately unsuccessful plan for a new stadium for the Yankees was proposed above the West Side Yard in 1993. A similar plan for a Yankee stadium above the West Side Yard was proposed in 1996, and was endorsed by mayor
Rudy Giuliani. and was also not built. to become the home of the Jets after the games ended. Proposers dubbed the structure the "
New York Sports and Convention Center". In addition to the stadium, rezoning the adjacent area would have incentivized the construction of some 13,000 new residential units and of office space. This effort, led by
Daniel Doctoroff, was unpopular with the public and politicians. In January 2005, the
New York City Council approved the 60-block rezoning, including the eastern portion of the West Side Yard.
Michael Bloomberg, then the city's mayor, subsequently separated the city's broader rezoning plans from the rail yard stadium. In conjunction with the city, the
Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) issued a Request for Proposal (RFP) for a mixed-use development to be built on platforms over the rail yard, which would remain in use throughout. The MTA received three bids to cap and lease the rail yard.
Cablevision (the owner of the nearby
Madison Square Garden), the
New York Jets organization, and
TransGas Energy all submitted proposals. The Jets won the development rights, but several lawsuits filed after the bidding process alleged they won without paying a fair price. In June 2005,
New York State Assembly speaker
Sheldon Silver voted against the stadium, definitively eliminating the possibility of support at the state level and the possibility of the stadium's construction. Although Bloomberg and others expressed doubts about interest in the area from real estate companies after the stadium fell through, development nevertheless continued. The former mayor later expressed that the loss of the stadium may have been a "blessing" for New York. The MTA received proceeds from the development's 2006 bond offering to pay for
an extension of the
New York City Subway's to
34th Street–Hudson Yards station. With funding assured, the MTA proceeded quickly to construct the extension. The first construction contracts were awarded in October 2007, and the subway extension opened on September 13, 2015.
Bidding process , November 2018 In late 2006, the city and the MTA backed out of a plan for the city to purchase the development site, and created a proposal to seek bids from private developers. This was followed by a formal request for proposals in 2008 with the intention of creating a large-scale mixed-use development above the rail yards. Five developers responded to the RFP:
Extell Development Company,
Tishman Speyer,
Brookfield,
Vornado Realty Trust with the
Durst Organization, and
the Related Companies.
Submissions Brookfield's
Skidmore, Owings and Merrill-designed master plan known as "Hudson Place" and "Hudson Green" proposed constructing 15 towers (four office and 11 residential/hotel) that would range in height from to . The buildings would include of office space and 4,000 residential units, including 400 devoted to affordable housing. "Hudson Place" encompassed the office component covering the eastern portion of the railyards while "Hudson Green" was residential-focused and planned for the western railyards. Individual towers would have been designed by
SHoP Architects,
SANAA,
Thomas Phifer,
Handel Architects, and
Diller Scofidio + Renfro. The development would have also included two hotels, a cultural center, school, two parks (4.4 acres for Hudson Green and 3.4 acres for Hudson Place), and of space for the
Children's Museum of Manhattan. Durst and Vornado hired
FXCollaborative and
César Pelli to design a development named "Hudson Center" which would have included 13 towers ranging from to tall. Extell, in a master plan designed by
Steven Holl, proposed 11 towers with just two featuring office space and the rest devoted to 3,812 residential units. Extell's proposal was fundamentally different than the others as they proposed constructing a suspension deck over the rail yards similar to a
suspension bridge rather than the
truss structure every other developer proposed. Writing in
The Wall Street Journal,
Ada Louise Huxtable praised the proposal, writing that it "could have the unity, character and potential beauty of a
Rockefeller Center." Tishman Speyer's bid, designed by
Helmut Jahn, covered 11 towers centered on four large office towers surrounded by seven smaller residential buildings. Two of the office towers would have stood at while the other two would be taller at with the accompanying residential buildings varying between and tall. Investment bank
Morgan Stanley would have occupied all of office space in both the taller office towers as the company's headquarters and also would have provided equity and debt financing for the project.
Selection Tishman Speyer, a New York-based real estate conglomerate, won the bid in March 2008. Tishman Speyer won a $1 billion bid to lease and cap the West Side Yard, with payment due as annual rent over a 99-year period. It would also spend another $2 billion for development over the rail yards, including for the two platforms over the yards to support of public spaces, four office buildings, and ten high-rise residential towers. Two months later, the deal broke down when Morgan Stanley pulled out due to the
2008 financial crisis. Subsequently, the MTA chose the Related Companies and
Goldman Sachs to develop Hudson Yards under the same conditions. Related's revised plan included 13 buildings encompassing 12 million square feet of space including 2,154 rental apartments, 20% of which would be affordable. Other components included 2,619 condominiums, 5.5 million square feet () of offices, a hotel, about of retail, a school and a cultural facility. In April 2013, the Related/Oxford joint venture obtained a $475 million construction loan from parties including
Barry Sternlicht's
Starwood Capital Group and luxury retailer
Coach. The financing deal was unique in several aspects, including the fact that it included a construction mezzanine loan, that Coach was a lender on both the debt and equity sides, and that the MTA reused a "severable lease" structure (previously used by
Battery Park City) that allowed for the loans. A portion of the project was also financed by the
EB-5 investment program.
Construction and opening The groundbreaking for
10 Hudson Yards, which was not built on the platform, occurred on December 4, 2012. At that event, the start of construction was also announced for
30 Hudson Yards. No tenants had been secured for any building in the complex when construction started on 10 Hudson Yards. However, three tenants—
L'Oreal,
Coach, and
SAP—were announced in 2013. In October 2013, New York's Industrial Development Agency granted Related a $328 million tax exemption for 20 and 30 Hudson Yards, in addition to the previously approved $106 million exemption for 10 Hudson Yards. Shortly after, Related announced construction would begin on the platform covering the eastern railyards in January 2014 and cost $721 million. Construction on the platform began in March 2014 after Related secured a $250 million loan from
Deutsche Bank. The erection of the platform was necessary in order to start construction on 15, 30, and 35 Hudson Yards. The platform for the Eastern Rail Yard was completed in October 2015, and the western platform was completed by 2016. After several delays in the completion of the 34th Street subway station, the station opened the following September. However, the first building in the complex, 10 Hudson Yards, did not open until May 31, 2016. Groundbreaking occurred for
15 Hudson Yards in December 2014, and work on
35 Hudson Yards and
55 Hudson Yards both started the following month. A 16-story,
honeycomb-shaped structure with stairwells named
Vessel, in the center of Hudson Yards' public plaza, was unveiled to the public in September 2016. The pieces of
Vessel were fabricated off-site and were brought to Hudson Yards for assembly starting in April 2017. Work on the final building in the first phase, 50 Hudson Yards, began in May 2018. while the High Line spur adjacent to 10 Hudson Yards opened in June 2019. Beginning in late 2017, unions working at the site alleged that the developers "continue[d] to look for deeper and deeper concessions" in their negotiations, and begin organizing a campaign referred to as "#CountMeIn". Their push to change the site to an
open shop has affected the second phase of construction, on the western yard, despite meetings between labor leader
Gary LaBarbera and Related executive Bruce Beal Jr.
2020s to present COVID-19 pandemic and recovery Edge observation deck on the 100th floor of 30 Hudson Yards had opened on March 11, 2020, but the onset of the
COVID-19 pandemic in New York City caused Related to close Edge two days later. The restaurant on the 101st floor of the same building, Peak, also opened on March 11 but closed the following day after a staff member contracted COVID-19. In April 2020,
The Wall Street Journal reported that condominium sales had slowed due to the pandemic. The
Journal also noted a downturn in retail rent collections at the development. This decline occurred in part due to unique contracts between Related and its tenants, which meant the developer collected income based on sales, rather than traditional fixed payments.
The Wall Street Journal reported in July that the Hudson Yards Neiman Marcus location, the flagship of the development's retail offerings, would close. Related opted to turn the Neiman Marcus store into offices instead of a store. Thomas Keller closed his TAK restaurant in the complex in August 2020. The Hudson Yards mall reopened in September 2020, though
Bloomberg noted few visitors. The Edge observation deck also reopened that month.
Further tenants Despite the closures,
Barclays reportedly considered Hudson Yards as a location for a new American headquarters in late 2020. Additionally,
BlackRock indicated in early 2021 that it still intended to move its headquarters to 50 Hudson Yards in 2022 or 2023. It joined
Ernst and Young in companies relocating to Hudson Yards by 2024. A 2023 study from
The Real Deal magazine found that rental rates for Class A office space, the highest class of offices, were twice the rates for Class B office space. As a result, its developers were paying the city government $200 million more annually than the city had anticipated. By early 2024, more than 90 percent of the office space at Hudson Yards was occupied, including all of the space in several buildings. Additionally, average monthly visits increased 19 percent year-on-year and over 80 percent of employees at Hudson Yards worked in-person between Monday and Thursday, triple the comparable rate citywide. The building was to have 47 stories and would be located on Hudson Boulevard East between 35th and 36th Streets. Hudson Yards hosted the 2024 Stonewall Day benefit concert, with proceeds supporting the Stonewall National Monument. Cynthia Erivo headlined the show and other featured performers included Conchita Wurst, Lina Bradford, and Loren Allred. In September 2024, Hudson Yards, through a partnership with
WME and
IMG, hosted
New York Fashion Week runway shows.
Future development , visible in the foreground, is the site for the proposed Phase 2 The western portion of the yard is bordered by 30th Street and 33rd Street in the north and south, and Eleventh and Twelfth avenues in the east and west. The western phase of the project was originally to contain up to seven residential towers, an office building at 33rd Street and Eleventh Avenue tentatively known as "West Tower", and a school serving Pre-K to eighth grade students. Related Companies had previously commissioned works from Stern, Heatherwick, and Gehry. Work on the platform to cover the second half of the tracks was originally scheduled to begin in 2018; however, construction was later rescheduled to begin in 2019.
Wynn New York City proposal In late 2022, multiple sources reported that Related had entered into a partnership with
Wynn Resorts to attempt to develop an
integrated resort with a casino on the western yard, presumably replacing earlier plans. The next year, it was announced that the plan would include a "'resort' tower", developed with Wynn, as well as a casino and hotel. The plan includes a previously unannounced 2-million-square-foot office tower, as well as a previously disclosed apartment building, school, and park. This plan would require that the partnership secure one of several available licenses, issued by New York state, for casinos in New York City and its surroundings. Competitors for the casino licenses included a joint venture between
SL Green Realty and
Caesars Entertainment,
Soloviev Group, and other bidders. The proposed hotel, located west of 11th Avenue, would have been 80 stories tall and would have included 1,500 or 1,750 rooms, making it one of
largest hotels in New York City if built. In March 2024, Wynn Resorts released renderings of the proposed resort and other components of the western portion of the project. In July 2024, the non-profit group
Friends of the High Line claimed that the plan to build a 20-story podium and skyscraper on the western section of the site would overwhelm the park. In January 2025,
Manhattan Community Board 4 completed a non-binding vote to recommend that the casino not be approved. Manhattan Borough President
Mark Levine also opposed zoning changes for the casino in favor of adding more housing; the new proposal reduces the number of total residential units, though with the same number of affordable units. Despite this opposition, the project secured approval from the City Planning Commission in April 2025. Later that month, Wynn and Related added 2,500 apartments to the proposal, increasing the amount of proposed housing units in the area to 4,000. Wynn Resorts canceled the Wynn New York City proposal when they withdrew their bid for a downstate New York casino license on May 19, citing community opposition and complex zoning laws. Wynn would instead focus on their existing properties and their upcoming
Wynn Al Marjan Island development.
2025 plan In May 2025, Related announced their new development plans for the western portion of the Hudson Yards. Under this plan, 4,000 housing units would be built and a new office building would be included. A public park would surround the new development. That June, Related and New York City mayor
Eric Adams announced that 625 of the new apartments would be affordable and that, in addition to the park, there would be a daycare and a 750-student public school. The City Council subsequently rezoned the western part of Hudson Yards to allow for the new development. That September, the city offered Related $2 billion for the development of the western part of Hudson Yards, which would cover the cost of a platform, rent payments to the MTA for the use of
air rights, and some funding for a new school on the site. The subsidies needed to be approved by Adams's successor
Zohran Mamdani, who had expressed skepticism of public financing for large corporate endeavors. ==Rail yard platform==