In early October 2006, the one-acre parking lot on the west side of New York Downtown Hospital began its transformation into one of the tallest buildings in Lower Manhattan. Beekman Tower, whose address will be 8 Spruce Street (between William and Nassau Streets), will rise 76 stories (850 feet) and reshape the downtown skyline by the time it is completed in 2012.
Architect Frank Gehry designed the glass- and titanium-skinned tower. It will be primarily residential, though it also will dedicate 100,000 square feet to a public school, hospital offices, and an underground parking lot. There will be retail around its base and public plazas on its east and west sides, which pedestrians can use for access between Beekman and Spruce Streets.
Click here to read more about the project’s September 2006 community meeting.
To learn more about the project, please contact Forest City Ratner construction manager Joe Rechichi at (718) 923-8543 or jrechichi@fcrc.com, or call Joyce Baumgarten at (212) 686-4551.
The tower is planned to open its doors in late 2012. Above-grade steel became visible at the site in spring 2008; the building topped out at 76 stories in November 2009.
The tower will consist primarily of luxury residential apartments but also will house a 100,000-square-foot kindergarten-through-8th grade school. The 630-seat school will occupy the lower floors of the tower and have priority access to one of two public plazas on the east and west sides of the building. Designed by Gehry and landscape architecture firm Field Operations, the plazas will bring welcome public green space to the neighborhood.
FCR also is including hospital-controlled, public parking in the building’s basement and is building out 25,000 square feet of the building’s podium (its lower floors) to serve as doctors’ offices. Around the base will be at-grade retail.
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