Wall Street might seem a bit quiet these days. Not the markets – the neighborhood in downtown Manhattan. While the New York Stock Exchange – and its Fearless Girl – will always be tourist attractions, the towers surrounding them in the Financial District have been rapidly converted to luxury condos or apartment buildings. What used to be the offices where recent generations of deals took place are now one and two bedrooms with views of the bay and bridges.
So to where are financial firms migrating? Years ago, the exodus began and led to Midtown. But since then, New York’s newest and shiniest neighborhood opened this spring. And the keys are jingling—Hudson Yards’ developers have made a concerted effort to move finance to the west side.
Hudson Yards is New York’s brand-new neighborhood, complete with soon-to-be six gleaming glass towers, a huge luxury mall, plenty of parks and outdoor spaces, even a first-of-its-kind Equinox hotel.
The entire neighborhood was built on top of the Long Island Railroad’s eastern railyards (a possibility first conceived in the 1950s), leveraging mind-boggling feats of engineering that involve a 10-acre platform and 300 caissons drilled into the bedrock between the tracks.
But it’s not just that shiny new-office smell, the weird-and-wonderful Vessel monument in the central courtyard, or even the cultural hub called The Shed that are the main draws. The entire 28 acres was built as a model for the 21st century urban experience – a connected, clean, energy-efficient neighborhood.
Last week, as part of the Wall Street Journal’s Future of Everything Festival, I got to see the developer, Related’s CEO Stephen Ross, talk about creating the largest private real estate development in New York since Rockefeller Center.
I also got a tour of the cogeneration power plant that sits atop the shopping center. Twice as efficient as conventional power sources, the neighborhood can easily disconnect from the city’s electrical grid and power itself in the case of a national disaster or emergency.
Here’s a list of what financial companies are moving where in this new western enclave:
30 Hudson Yards
On the corner of 33rd Street and 10th Avenue, this steel-and-glass tower is one of the tallest office buildings in New York City. It’s also home to the Western Hemisphere’s highest open-air observation deck, the Edge, which is 1,100 feet up. Wells Fargo Securities is moving its headquarters and trading floor to this building. Global investment firm KKR also has multiple floors, along with DNB Bank.
50 Hudson Yards
Still under construction and set to open in 2022, this building will be New York City’s fourth-largest commercial office tower by square footage. The interior was designed to house large trading floors and collaborative work arrangements. Investment management firm BlackRock will relocate its entire global headquarters to this building, occupying 850,000 square feet across 15 floors.
55 Hudson Yards
More than any of the other towers, 55 Hudson Yards is shaping up to the financial services building. Opening this year, this tower’s lobby opens up directly onto the park and the High Line. It has a cast-iron façade that takes inspiration from the nearby High Line.
Tenants are a mixed bag of financial companies, hedge funds, and investment firms, including quantitative trading firm Engineers Gate Manager, Arosa Capital Management, HealthCor Management, Steve Cohen’s Point72 Asset Management, Daniel Loeb’s Third Point, MarketAxess, and Silver Lake, an investment firm that has backed the likes of Alibaba and Dell—along with many others. Let’s just call this the Asset Management Tower.
Becca Cooper is Head of Digital Strategy in Cognito’s New York office