Chase Moves To Demolish 'Gracious And Vibrant' Office Tower At 270 Park Avenue

One year after unveiling a development plan that struck a dagger in the hearts of many of the city's architectural critics, JPMorgan Chase has begun the process of filing city permits to demolish its 52-story headquarters at 270 Park Avenue.

A demolition permit application was filed last week with the city’s Department of Buildings for 270 Park, better known as the Union Carbide building for its original occupant. But the filing is only a preliminary step. Chase still needs to submit materials that detail how the company plans to proceed with the demolition and comply with safety requirements, according to DOB officials.

DOB First Deputy Commissioner Thomas Fariello and Borough Commissioner Scott Pavan said on Thursday that the agency will have to examine many facets of the project, including its coordination with the Department of Transportation to ensure that cars and pedestrians are protected. They added that it was too early to say when the demolition, which will be completed in stages, will commence.

The company has said it anticipates completing the demolition sometime in the fourth quarter of 2020. It then intends to replace it with a new 70-story headquarters that can accommodate 15,000 employees; 270 Park currently accommodates about 6,000 of Chase's workers.

Whatever the ultimate timetable, the news appears to doom 270 Park, a black-and-silver ribbed building that is one of the tallest in the city designed by a female architect. If the demolition is completed, the 707-foot-tall tower's final distinction will be as the tallest building in the world to be intentionally razed.

The decision to do away with the building has stunned and saddened the city’s architectural community, especially as it comes amid an industry movement toward sustainability. Chase has renovated the building several times over the years. In 2011, the building obtained a LEED Platinum rating from the U.S. Green Building Council.

“It all seems kind of willful and arbitrary,” said Kyle Johnson, a board member of Documentation and Conservation of Buildings, Sights and Neighborhoods of the Modern Movement (DOCOMOMO)’s NY/Tri-State division. “It’s like throwing out the baby with the bathwater.”

The 270 Park building “arguably should have been designated a modernist New York City landmark,” Johnson added. “But it has consistently been overlooked.”

In hopes of saving the building, DOCOMOMO last year asked the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission to consider designating 270 Park as a landmark. The request was denied.

Shortly after Chase’s announcement, mournful tributes poured in, including Alexandra Lange lauding the building as an elegant modernist structure that helped "define postwar New York style and Justin Davidson calling it "gracious and vibrant, the incarnation of white-collar America."

270 Park Avenue (Photo by Scott Lynch)

The New York chapter of the American Institute of Architects issued a statement expressing concerns that the demolition would create an unwelcome precedent in New York: "Without a better understanding of how it will be dismantled and what is going to replace it, demolishing such a recently renovated green building, particularly one as prominent as 270 Park Avenue, implies that sustainable design is a low priority."

Another notable architecture critic weighed in on Twitter:

Designed by Gordon Bunshaft and Natalie de Blois of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, the building was erected in 1961 for Union Carbide. De Blois, who also worked on the headquarters designs for Lever Brothers and Pepsi-Cola, has been heralded as a female pioneer in the industry. She died in 2013.

In many ways, the redevelopment plan is a byproduct of the city’s East Midtown rezoning, which passed in August 2017. The idea was to spur a revival of an area comprised of aging and inefficient office buildings. The new zoning rules permit Chase to purchase air rights from other property owners in order to construct a much taller office tower. In return, the city is entitled to collect a tax of at least $61.49 per square foot from the sale of air rights, with the money going toward a fund for public improvements.

The final replacement plan is yet to be submitted but recent zoning documents filed with City Planning have indicated that the new building could be as tall as 1,400 feet, larger than originally imagined and adding a sizable protrusion to the Midtown skyline.

Last month, members of Manhattan’s Community Board 5 pushed back on a plan by Chase to reduce the size of a proposed public open space from 10,000 square feet to 7,000 square feet.

Of course, the demolition of an architecturally prized building is all too common in New York City. In 1967, workers began taking down the Singer Building at 149 Broadway. The former home of the Singer Sewing Machine Company, the 612-foot-tall tower was the tallest in the world when it opened in 1908, and later became the tallest building to be demolished. It was replaced by the 54-story, 743-foot-high One Liberty Plaza.

A view of the Singer building from Broadway. (Courtesy of U.S. Library of Congress)

Johnson said corporate giants like Chase are increasingly looking to put their stamp on the city skyline as a way of marketing their company brands.

Ironically, prior to moving its headquarters to 270 Park, Chase occupied the building then known as One Chase Manhattan Plaza, an officially recognized landmark in the Financial District.

“That building had brand recognition,” Johnson said.