Topping out at 1,296 feet this week, 30 Hudson Yards is the second tallest skyscraper in New York City.
The tower is part of a new $25 billion neighborhood by the same name. Hudson Yards is the most expensive real-estate development in American history. Located between 30th and 34th street on Manhattan’s Far West Side, it features a mix of office space, expensive condo buildings, retail, and outdoor public space.
Big tech companies and financial firms, including Amazon, JPMorgan, and BlackRock, have moved or plan to move to Hudson Yards. These moves point to a larger corporate migration trend from Midtown to the lower end of the island. Much of the city’s Fortune 500 is now relocating below 42nd Street, an area with a growing tech scene.
Hudson Yards, which will span 28 acres by 2024, is also part of a larger luxury development boom that has accelerated in Manhattan over the past several decades. The island’s Far West Side was once home to warehouses, tenements, and rail yards. Today, it features bars with $14 cocktails, multi-million-dollar apartments that overlook an lush elevated park, boutiques, and restaurants founded by celebrity chefs like David Chang, José Andrés, and Thomas Keller.
Over the next three years, Amazon is hiring 2,000 more employees for its new 360,000-square-foot office at 5 Manhattan West in Hudson Yards. To attract the online retail giant, New York state provided $20 million in performance-based taxed credits through Empire State Development’s Excelsior Jobs Program. New York City is also a finalist for Amazon’s $5 billion second headquarters, dubbed HQ2, with Hudson Yards listed as one of four potential sites across three boroughs.
In December, BlackRock, a financial company that manages $5 trillion in assets, struck a deal with Hudson Yards developer Related Companies to headquarter there for at least 20 years, too. As The New York Times reported, BlackRock will move to 15 floors at 50 Hudson Yards in 2022, pledging to keep 2,672 jobs in Manhattan and create another 700. As it did with Amazon, the state has awarded the company special tax credits, which could be worth up to $25 million.
Many corporations, including JPMorgan, Google Alphabet’s Sidewalk Labs, and Coach, have already made the move to Hudson Yards.
For JPMorgan, the new headquarters is ground zero for growing tech ambitions. The firm recently told Business Insider it has a $10.8 billion tech budget and 50,000 technologists on its payroll. Many employees moved to the Hudson Yards office this year.
Companies including TimeWarner, CNN, Wells Fargo, HBO, and the global investment firm KKR will settle into the neighborhood’s tallest tower, 30 Hudson Yards, following its completion in 2019.
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