30 Hudson Yards
30 Hudson Yards (also the North Tower) is a supertall skyscraper in the West Side area of Manhattan, New York City. Located near Hell's Kitchen, Chelsea, and the Penn Station area, the building is part of the Hudson Yards Redevelopment Project, a plan to redevelop the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's West Side Yard. It is the sixth-tallest building in New York City. The building has a triangular observation deck jutting out from the 100th floor, with a bar and event space on the 101st floor. This observation deck, at 1,100 feet, opened in March 2020  and is the second highest outdoor observation deck in the Western Hemisphere, after Toronto's CN Tower Outdoor SkyTerrace (342m or 1,122 feet). (New York’s One World Trade Center has an observation deck on floors 100–102, at 1,268 feet and Chicago's Willis Tower has an observation deck on its 103rd floor, at 1,354 feet; however, they are both enclosed.) It offers new skyline views to the south and east of Manhattan, the surrounding boroughs, and New Jersey. History. The groundbreaking ceremony took place on December 4, 2012. Early construction work focused on building a platform to cover  much of the Eastern Rail Yard, for much of Phase 1 to sit upon. The platform is rested on caissons that are drilled underground. On December 12, 2013, it was announced that Tutor Perini Building Corp. was awarded a $510 million contract to build the platform. In 2013, Time Warner (later WarnerMedia, now Warner Bros. Discovery) announced its intention to move most of its offices to 30 Hudson Yards, vacating its current headquarters at the Time Warner Center, also owned by Related, at Columbus Circle. The company would occupy half the building, below the 38th floor. In mid-2015, Related  received a $690 million loan from Bank of America, Wells Fargo, and CIBC which allowed construction to start. By January 2016, the structure's first few aboveground floors were already complete. Construction of the observation deck at the top of the tower began in April 2018. The observation deck was nearly complete by mid-2018. In January 2019, WarnerMedia hired Douglas Harmon and Adam Spies of Cushman & Wakefield to find a buyer that would sell their office condominium and allow the company to lease it back—known as a sale-leaseback. WarnerMedia's office condo included more than 1.4 million  square feet on floors 16 through 51 and represented approximately 60 percent of the 90-story tower with 2.6 million square feet. The building opened on March 15, 2019. One month later, WarnerMedia executed a leaseback and sold their space to Related and Allianz for $2.2 billion after signing a 15-year lease for . The partners financed the purchase with a 10-year, $1.43 billion commercial mortgage-backed security interest-only loan from Deutsche Bank, Wells Fargo, and Goldman Sachs. In June, KKR took out a $490 million mortgage from Deutsche Bank on their office condominium space . Architecture and design. Kohn Pedersen Fox was chosen for the design of the building. Originally planned to be tall, the building was later downsized to tall, making it still the development's tallest building. WarnerMedia's space features amenities including a cafeteria, a fitness center, a two-level auditorium and cinema and an outdoor deck. The building's lobby will contain artwork by Spanish artist Jaume Plensa consisting of 11 stainless steel spheres hanging from the ceiling, meant to represent global unity and cultural diversity. The Edge. The building features an outdoor observation deck known as "The Edge", located on  the 100th and 101st floors. The Edge contains a cantilevered outdoor terrace jutting outward south of the building on the 100th floor, providing panoramic views of Manhattan and the Hudson River. It is the tallest outdoor observation deck in the Western Hemisphere and the second highest observation deck in New York City, after One World Observatory. Visitors can lean into the high clear glass barricade slanted 6.6 degrees outward to safely check out the street and rooftops below. The Edge also features a glass triangle in the floor which looks down to the street below. There is also a grand  outdoor staircase on the east side of the deck. The Edge opened to visitors on March 11, 2020, and temporarily closed two days later due to the COVID-19 pandemic in New York City. The Edge reopened on September 2, 2020. City Climb at Edge. In October, it was announced that 30 Hudson Yards would host another attraction dubbed “City Climb at Edge” which allows visitors to ascend an outdoor staircase located at the top of the tower's crown. It was opened to the public on November 9, 2021 and is the highest open-air building ascent in the world