Theatre Row, 420 W. 42nd Street

Cost: $70.5 million

Development Team

Owner/Developer: The Brodsky Organization, NYC
Co-Developer: Quinlan & Field, NYC
Construction Manager: Bovis Lend Lease LMB Inc., NYC
Architects: Schuman Lichtenstein Claman & Efron, NYC
Hardy Holzman Pfeiffer Associates, NYC
Structural Engineer: Rosenwasser/Grossman Consulting Engineers, P.C., NYC
MEP Engineer: I.M. Robbins, NYC
Theater Consultants: 42nd Street Development Corp., NYC and The Shubert Organization, NYC
Plumbing Contractor: MAlmar Plumbing & Heating, South Ozone Park, N.Y.

Rising 41 stories over the famous street of dreams, 420 W. 42nd Street has a façade that alternates every few floors between white and dark gray brick, making it a standout even among the bright lights of the Times Square area.

Yet that is hardly the only unusual feature of this 330,000-sq.-ft., $70.5 million mixed-use complex developed and owned by the Brodsky Organization. A high-rise residential tower with 246 apartments built over six theaters is certainly not your everyday apartment building.

The Brodsky Organization had to agree to perserve the theaters existing on the site or to build new theaters for those displaced by the new facility. This meant that the building's footprint was a large "C," built around the existing low-rise properties.

The top 30 floors of the tower are cantilevered over the theaters. The building's 69,000-sq.-ft. podium is home to six theaters, five of which were rebuilt by Bovis Lend Lease LMB Inc., construction manager on the entire project.

Contaminated soil was suspected halfway through the excavation. Since the tests (which eventually proved negative) took three weeks to complete, the project faced a serious delay. Rossenwassser/Grossman Consulting Engineers PC, the project's structural engineer, decided that the superstructure could begin on one end of the site, while excavation on the questionable end of the site awaited test results.