Three-in-One

Novel Team Builds a Mixed-Use Tower with Multiple Personalities

Rental apartments, a lodge for cancer patients, retail spaces, a garage, and a friary will all be wrapped into a new 60-story tower that is set to open next year in Manhattan's Midtown West area between Greeley Square and Penn Station.

Photo by Diane Greer

Two New York-based developers and a religious order have combined to erect a new 60-story building that has three purposes and a unique profile in Manhattan's Midtown West section.

The Durst Organization and Sidney Fetner Associates partnered last year with the Franciscan Friars of Holy Name Province to build the environmentally friendly tower next to the Church of St. Francis of Assisi on W. 31st Street.

The effort takes advantage of a prime piece of real estate that the order controls in order to create a new home for the friars, a new local office for the American Cancer Society, and a tower of rental apartments.

Construction began on the Epic at 125 West 31st Street last summer. The base portion with the friary and cancer society space is slated to open in March, followed in May by the first rental apartments.

Over the past 80 years, the Franciscans have purchased properties on West 31st and 32nd streets midblock between Sixth and Seventh avenues with an eye toward developing the area, said Father John O'Connor, director of real estate for the order. There were five buildings on the site housing retail spaces and a restaurant, as well as a friar's residence that the order learned several years ago was in need of costly repairs.

Instead of pursuing the repairs, O'Connor said he commissioned a feasibility study four years ago. The study recommended issuing a request for proposals to develop the properties through a joint venture that would not only replace the friary but also generate a future income stream to support the order financially. That RFP resulted in about 10 proposals and eventually the selection of the Durst-Fetner team in a deal that closed in May 2005.

While the development team declined to provide a total project cost, the New York State Housing Finance Agency approved a financing plan in May 2005 that included $220 million worth of loans for the construction effort. That sum did not include additional funds that the order used to pay for building its own space.

The friars selected the Durst-Fetner team due to its strong development background and financing plan, O'Connor said. The Franciscans also liked the idea of a green rental building with an affordable housing component that made up the core of the Durst-Fetner proposal.

To clear the property for the 582,000-sq.-ft. structure, the Franciscans had the five buildings onsite demolished. The developers also bought air rights for the adjacent church and rectory, both of which are owned by the Archdiocese of New York, in order to boost the building's size by more than 30 percent, said Damon Pazzaglini, a senior vice president at Fetner.

The new building has three primary sections designed to incorporate the unique identities and needs of their occupants.

The Franciscans and the American Cancer Society each will own and occupy a section at the base. Durst-Fetner and the friars jointly own the third section, a 459-unit residential tower starting above the 12th floor. The building also has a 4,900-sq.-ft. ground-floor retail space and a 130-space, two-level, below-grade parking garage.

On the 31st Street side of the building, the Franciscans will occupy part of five floors at the base, except for a 35-ft.-wide strip containing the residential lobby. The 43,000-sq.-ft. friary has a separate entrance, auditorium, offices, and three floors of residences. The third-floor roof of the residential lobby provides a garden and recreation space for the friars.

A brick façade on the 31st Street side complements the 100-year-old church and rectory. The residential lobby is recessed from the street and faced in granite to differentiate it from the friary.

Though it is not part of the development team, the American Cancer Society will occupy 80,000 sq. ft., with its regional headquarters on parts of the second to sixth floors on the 32nd Street side, and its first Hope Lodge in New York on floors 7 to 12. The society has other such free, temporary lodges around the country for bone marrow transplant patients and out-of-town family members.

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An expansive glass and shadowbox curtain wall on the 32nd Street side of the base provides a distinct identity for the society, said Bruce Fowle, senior principal of New York-based FXFowle, the project's architect. The 32nd Street side includes a ramp leading to the 25,000-sq.-ft. garage.

Foundation work proved tricky early on because of an Amtrak tunnel abutting the property on 32nd Street. It was built in 1905 as an open cut in rock.

"Back then, they did not form the walls and then fill between the walls and the overcut," said David Good, project manager for Mueser Rutledge Consulting Engineers of New York, the geotechnical consultant on the effort. "They just poured hard against the overcut so there was upwards of 5 to 10 ft. of over-pour."

It ended up being difficult to distinguish the wall from the concrete over-pour. To play it safe, the crews moved piles supporting the structure about 5 ft. away from the wall, Good said. They screwed in piles to avoid vibration that might have damaged the tunnel and then cantilevered the foundation over the wall.

The tower façade features a window wall system with floor-to-ceiling glass. On the upper stories, the windows flare out, articulating the façade and expanding the views, Fowle said.

To accommodate long expanses of glass windows, the design calls for shear walls and 10-in.-thick slabs to reduce the need for perimeter columns, Fetner said.

Wind tunnel tests also were a factor in the design of the shear walls. Testing showed that wind, accelerating as it went around the Empire State Building two blocks to the east, would hit the new building and cause diagonal stress, Fetner added. The shear walls stiffened the structure to handle wind impact and counter the stress.

The residential portion will have studio, one-, and two-bedroom units. The project was able to receive low-cost financing and tax incentives under the state housing finance agency's 80-20 affordable housing program by setting aside 92 apartments for lower income tenants, said Hal Fetner, president of the Fetner firm.

Rental rates have not been set, Fetner added. The apartment tenants will have access to a health club, game room, lounge, and conference room.

Design requirements for the friars and cancer society also presented architectural and building challenges. While the society sought 11-ft. ceilings in its offices, the friars wanted 8-ft. ceilings in their residence, Fetner said. Consequently, floors they share in the base had to be staggered and took three months to build.

"Instead of building six floors, you were really building 12 floors," said Kevin Connolly, project executive for Gotham Construction of New York, the construction manager on the effort.

The project, which is seeking silver-level Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design status from U.S. Green Building Council, incorporates sustainable design elements such as stormwater collection for irrigation, green roofs, energy-efficient mechanical systems, and high-performance glazed windows.

The building will use 12.5 percent less energy and 20 percent less water than a conventional peer, said Pamela Lippe, president of New York's e4 inc, which was LEED consultant on the project.

Fetner said that the sustainable building elements added 7 to 10 percent to the cost of the building.

The development also served as a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency pilot project for a deconstruction program led by the Community Environmental Center, with the aid of NY Wa$teMatch, and the Industrial and Technology Assistance Corp., all of which are based in New York. The effort involved deconstructing the five buildings on the site by hand over six weeks in late 2004 in order to facilitate the reuse or recycling of as many materials as possible.

A report prepared for the EPA later that year stated that 36 tons of construction waste had been diverted from area landfills and reused or recycled through the project. The five masonry and wood buildings, which had all been built between 1920 and 1930, facilitated the salvage of resalable materials such as ceiling tiles, wooden floorboards, doors, ceramic tile, vents, paneling, plumbing equipment, shutters, and lighting fixtures.

Key Players

Owner: Sidney Fetner Associates, New York; Durst Organization, New York; Franciscan Friars of Holy Name Province, New York

Construction Manager: Gotham Construction, New York

Architect: SLCE Architects (Schuman, Lichtenstein, Claman & Efron), New York; FXFowle, New York

Structural Engineer: Rosenwasser/Grossman Consulting Engineers, New York

Geotechnical Engineer: Mueser Rutledge Consulting Engineers, New York

M-E-P Engineer: IM Robbins, New York

LEED Consultant: e4 inc., New York