In New York, the neighborhood of the future is growing | Ideas for Montreal

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Hudson Yards in New York is the largest real estate project under construction in North America. A technical feat imagined to counter the lack of available land in Manhattan, which could inspire Montreal.

A text by Etienne Leblanc

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A whole new neighborhood will be born, on the border of Chelsea and Hell’s Kitchen, on the banks of the Husdon River, in western Manhattan. The Hudson Yards complex will provide 1.2 million square meters of living space. The places will be occupied mostly by offices, but there will be everything:

5,000 apartments;
a 5 star hotel;
7 storeys of shops;
5 office towers;
a cultural center;
a school for 750 pupils;
a park of 30,000 square meters.

To do this, the City changed the zoning of a huge area, between 30th and 43rd Street, and between 10th Avenue and the Hudson River.

The six towers are built largely on stilts. Two huge concrete platforms that will serve as a plinth will be built above the yard for trains destined for Penn Station. Thirty railways will thus be covered, even where the wagons which transport the thousands of people who commute between New Jersey and Manhattan Island morning and evening.

Image from 10

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This new neighborhood – some even say it will replace Wall Street as the center of finance – will be on the cutting edge of technology. The buildings will have LEED GOLD environmental certification and will be completely configured according to modern technologies.

The garbage chutes will have three doors (solid, organic and recyclable residues) that will lead to a large vacuum collection system. The compost will be used in the park that will be built in the center of the complex.

Residents will have real-time information on the position of each of the elevators, the arrival time of the metro or trains that will arrive under the platform, or the number of parking spaces available.

The heating and air conditioning systems and the frequency of the elevators will be regulated according to the information provided by a detector which identifies the number of passers-by.

“Intelligent” energy management

Marked by the trauma caused by Hurricane Sandy by plunging part of the city into darkness, the promoters will equip the site with a small power plant, in order to ensure a continuous energy supply during blackouts. The 15 megawatts will be generated from natural gas, wind turbines and solar panels.

The distribution of energy will be “intelligent”, insofar as the computer system will be able to redirect, store or outright resell surpluses in the neighborhood. The management of air conditioning or heating systems can be done by section. The space in which an impromptu office meeting will be held on weekends will thus be able to be heated or air conditioned on an ad hoc basis by the system of shops which are in operation.

Image from 14

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Subway line and High Line Park extended

The Hudson Yards project was done in collaboration with the New York City Transportation Authority (Metropolitan Transportation Authority). Metro line 7 will thus be extended west and south to end under the platform of the new building complex. The developer will pay for a small portion of the concrete infrastructure under the building to accommodate the station.

The construction of the Hudson Yards complex also accelerated the opening of the third section of the High Line Park. This linear park, built on an old elevated railway line, is on its way to becoming New York’s busiest place. Very gracefully, the new promenade arm encircles the future location of the six towers on three sides.

The residents of Hudson Yards will therefore have direct access to the metro, the park being built in the center of the complex and the famous High Line Park. It just goes to show that, in New York as elsewhere, investments in green spaces and in the public transport network also serve the interests of the private sector.

Discover New York’s multiple projects by exploring the interactive map below:

To view the map on your mobile device, click here (New window).