NYT - How the Pandemic Left the $25 Billion Hudson Yards Eerily Deserted
The largest private development in U.S. history has attracted marquee companies, but is struggling with unsold luxury condos and a mall barren of shoppers.
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But the pandemic has ravaged New York City’s real estate market and its premier, $25 billion development, raising significant questions about the future of Hudson Yards.
Hundreds of condominiums remain unsold, and the mall is barren of customers. Its anchor tenant, Neiman Marcus, filed for bankruptcy and closed permanently, and at least four other stores, as well as several restaurants, have also gone out of business.
The development’s centerpiece, the 150-foot-tall scalable structure known as the Vessel,
closed to visitors in January after a third suicide in less than a year. The office buildings, whose workers sustained many of the shops and restaurants, have been largely empty since last spring.
Even more perilous, the promised second phase of Hudson Yards — eight additional buildings, including a school, more luxury condos and office space — appears on indefinite hold as the developer, the Related Companies, seeks federal financing for a nearly 10-acre platform on which it will be built.
Related, which had said the entire project would be finished in 2024, no longer offers an estimated completion date.
The project’s woes are in many ways a microcosm of the broader challenges facing the city as it tries to recover.
Related said it was counting on wealthy buyers filling its condos and deep-pocketed customers packing the mall to make Hudson Yards financially viable.
But that was before the coronavirus arrived in New York...."
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