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Dive Brief:
- A team of architects, designers and contractors has completed construction on the $2.5 billion mixed-use development known as TSX Broadway, a 47-story tower located on the site of a former Broadway theater in New York City at the corner of Seventh Avenue and 47th. Street, according to a press release shared with Construction Dive by Mancini Duffy, the project’s lead architect.
- The New York City-based firm worked alongside hometown construction partner Pavarini McGovern, a part of STO Building Group, to raise the Palace Theater 30 feet and create a 661-room hotel, according to the statement. The renovated theater is now located between the third and eighth floors of the tower. Structure Tone, another STO Building Group team, managed the interior fit-out of the hotel and theatre.
- The mixed-use development also contains a bar and lounge with one of the largest outdoor terraces in Times Square and approximately 100,000 square feet of retail and entertainment space.
Diving knowledge:
The development process for TSX Broadway was not entirely free – financing was already in place when the COVID-19 pandemic hit, and demolition of the previous building on the site began in 2019 – but the team had delays in the schedule as a result of the pandemic.
Additionally, to meet the requirements of its original building permit, the procurement team had to ensure that TSX Broadway retained at least 25% of the floor space of the former 36-story building.
However, the pandemic brought a silver lining: with New York City cleared of people at the time, builders were able to reap the benefits of fewer crowds.
“When it came to coordinating people, cars and traffic, it’s actually been a help,” Robert Israel, executive vice president of TSX Broadway developer L&L Holding Co., told Construction Dive in 2021.
Among the biggest challenges of the project was making sure that every piece of the tower, from the hospitality to the retail to the concert segments and the theater, fit together seamlessly, said William Mandara Jr ., CEO of Mancini Duffy, to release her. Visitors can go from seeing a show on Broadway to a concert in the square in a matter of hours, without forgetting the commercial aspects.
“Even by New York City standards, this was a complicated project,” Mandara Jr. said.
To move the theater, the construction team used equipment that was a structural steel lifting mast and hybrid hydraulic jack in order to lift the £14m venue to its new home within the tower.
Once in place, the theater received a $50 million overhaul, with the team giving it a new third-floor lobby, a new backstage area, and new restrooms with 91 percent more amenities than the Palace Theater before 2019, according to the architect.
The development also boasts one of the largest LED screens in Times Square, covering an area of 18,000 square feet. According to the architect, the screen contains a unique cantilever performance stage that transforms the landmark’s famous pedestrian plaza into an open-air concert hall.
