270 Park Avenue, also known as the JPMorgan Chase Building, is a skyscraper under construction in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City. Designed by the firm of Foster + Partners, the tower is expected to rise when it is completed in 2025.
The tower replaces the 52-story Union Carbide Building, built in 1960 and demolished in 2021. The old structure was the headquarters of JPMorgan Chase, which is using 383 Madison Avenue until it can move into the new building.
Site
Located in New York City's Midtown Manhattan neighborhood, 270 Park Avenue will occupy the entire city block bounded by Madison Avenue to the west, 48th Street to the north, Park Avenue to the east, and 47th Street to the south. The lot measures about with a frontage of on each avenue and on each street.
The lot is part of Terminal City, the area that developed rapidly after the 1913 completion of the largely underground Grand Central Terminal. The buildings erected in the following years included office buildings such as the Chanin Building, Bowery Savings Bank Building, and New York Central Building, and hotels such as the Biltmore, Commodore, Waldorf Astoria, and Summit. The site of the future 270 Park Avenue was occupied by a six-building complex, the Hotel Marguery, which opened in 1917 and was developed by Charles V. Paterno. The stone-clad hotel was 12 stories high and designed in the Renaissance Revival style. By 1920, the area had become what The New York Times called "a great civic centre".
In 1961, the Hotel Marguery was replaced by the 52-story Union Carbide Building, the first structure to occupy the entire block. The new building eventually became JPMorgan Chase's world headquarters.
Among the site's current neighbors are the old New York Mercantile Library and 400 Madison Avenue to the west; Tower 49 to the northwest; 277 Park Avenue to the east; 245 Park Avenue to the southeast; and 383 Madison Avenue to the south.
Architecture
Foster and Partners is designing the building, which will be tall. Sources disagree on the number of stories. The New York Times indicates that the building will rise 70 stories, Emporis cites a figure of 63 stories, and the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat gives a figure of 60 stories. There are 24 massive columns at the base, which will support a lobby measuring about high, with public space facing Madison and Park Avenues. Above the lobby will be a series of setbacks to the west and east, tapering to a pinnacle.
The interior will fit 15,000 employees and will contain a food hall, a penthouse conference center, a fitness center, and large spaces illuminated by natural lights. The floor plates will be able to be configured in several layouts. To comply with city legislation, which bans the use of natural gas in all new buildings constructed after 2027, the structure will be powered entirely by hydroelectric energy. Ninety-seven percent of materials from the old building had been salvaged during its demolition; much of this material would be used in the new building.
The design team also includes Adamson Associates as architect of record; Jaros, Baum & Bolles as MEP engineer; and Severud Associates as structural engineer.
History
Planning
In February 2018, JPMorgan announced it would demolish the former Union Carbide Building to make way for a structure that was almost twice as tall. This was the first major project to be announced as part of the Midtown East rezoning in the 2010s. The former building became the tallest voluntarily demolished building in the world, overtaking the previous record-holder Singer Building that was demolished in 1968. The replacement , 70-story headquarters would have space for 15,000 employees. Tishman Construction Corporation will be the construction manager for the project.
To build the larger structure, JPMorgan purchased hundreds of thousands of square feet of air rights from nearby St. Bartholomew's Episcopal Church as well as from Michael Dell's MSD Capital, the owner of the air rights above Grand Central Terminal. In October 2018, JPMorgan announced that British architectural firm Foster + Partners would design the new building. The plans for the new building had grown to , though the zoning envelope allowed for a structure as high as . However, this also raised concerns that the taller building would require deeper foundations that could interfere with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's East Side Access tunnels and the Grand Central Terminal's rail yards, which are directly underneath 270 Park Avenue.