Tishman Speyer reveals plan for USPS building

Tishman Speyer President and CEO Rob Speyer announced that the company has entered into a definitive agreement with the United States Postal Service (USPS) to develop 630,000 s/f of creative offices across the top six floors of the massive 10-story Morgan North Postal Facility in Manhattan’s West Chelsea district.

Built in 1933 and encompassing an entire city block from Ninth to Tenth Avenue and 29th to 30th Street, the Morgan North building features massive floorplates, ceiling heights of up to 17 feet, and the largest private roof deck in Manhattan, which will be reserved for the exclusive use of Tishman Speyer’s future office tenants.

Under the 99-year lease, Tishman Speyer will redevelop floors five through ten of the Art Deco building for office use and create 5,100 square feet of street level retail along Ninth Avenue.

Office tenants will access their space via three dedicated lobbies and elevator banks, located on Ninth Avenue, 30th Street and Tenth Avenue. Tishman Speyer expects to begin construction in late 2020 with completion anticipated in mid-2022.

“With its West Chelsea location on the High Line and just steps from the Meatpacking District, Morgan North resides at the crossroads of Manhattan’s most vibrant and dynamic neighborhoods,” said Tishman Speyer President and CEO Rob Speyer. “Just as importantly, this authentic New York City building, with its limestone and brick façade, high ceilings, massive open floors and countless outdoor amenity options, is ideally suited for today’s creative, tech-oriented workforce.”

The fifth and sixth floors of the development will feature floorplates of more than 200,000 square feet each, making Morgan North one of just five office buildings in Manhattan with individual floors of that size. The 78,000 square foot seventh floor will open out onto a 2.5 acre roof deck, which can be programmed for a wide range of outdoor uses.

The upper three floors will have floorplates of approximately 48,000 square feet. Future tenants will also have access to an eighth floor terrace and a rooftop amenity space.

The USPS will continue to operate on the bottom four floors of the building, which is connected via a bridge to the Postal Service’s Morgan South facility across 29th Street. At 2.2 million total square feet, the entire two-block complex is currently one of the largest mail-processing facilities in the nation.

The development is situated in the heart of a Manhattan’s rapidly-transforming west side. The High Line, which used to have a direct connection into the Morgan North sorting facility, is home to a newly-created piazza that abuts Morgan North and an entrance directly adjacent to the building’s future Tenth Avenue lobby. The Hudson Yards district, which is catty corner to Morgan North, features a six-acre public park and nearly one million square feet of cultural facilities and new destination retail.

Morgan North is accessible from all five boroughs, Westchester County and New Jersey. It is in close proximity to New York’s most convenient transit hubs, including Penn Station, the Port Authority Bus Terminal, Midtown Ferry Terminal, Lincoln Tunnel and West Side Highway. The 7 Train is just steps away and three stops from Grand Central Terminal.

This will be Tishman Speyer’s second major development project in the neighborhood. The firm is currently constructing The Spiral, a 65-story, 2.8 million square foot office tower, which will be anchored by Pfizer and AllianceBernstein, just a few blocks north of the Morgan North building.

In addition to The Spiral, which will open in 2022, Tishman Speyer recently completed The JACX, a 1.2 million square-foot office development in Long Island City that is already fully leased. Tishman Speyer is also nearing completion on The Wheeler, a 10-story, 620,000 square foot creative office campus rising above Macy’s historic Downtown Brooklyn department store.

Tishman Speyer’s recent New York City development pipeline also includes Jackson Park, a 1,900 unit luxury rental development that opened in 2018 in Long Island City, and 11 Hoyt, a 480-unit condominium tower that is currently under construction in Downtown Brooklyn.