Time Warner Center

Deutsche Bank Center (also One Columbus Circle and formerly Time Warner Center) is a mixed-use building on Columbus Circle in Manhattan, New York City. The building occupies the western side of Columbus Circle and straddles the border between Hell's Kitchen and the Upper West Side. It was developed by The Related Companies and Apollo Global Management, and designed by David Childs and Mustafa Kemal Abadan of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill.

Deutsche Bank Center contains two twin towers, connected by a multi-story atrium. The building has a total floor area of . It contains office space, residential condominiums, the Mandarin Oriental, New York hotel, and the Jazz at Lincoln Center entertainment venue. The Shops at Columbus Circle shopping mall is placed at the base of the building, with a large Whole Foods Market grocery store on the lower level.

The building was built on the site of the New York Coliseum, formerly New York City's main convention center. Plans for the project, then known as Columbus Center, were approved in 1998. Construction began in November 2000 and a topping-out ceremony was held in 2003; the project was known as AOL Time Warner Center during construction, but the "AOL" name was dropped before opening. Time Warner Center officially opened on February 5, 2004. Deutsche Bank replaced WarnerMedia as the anchor tenant of the office area in May 2021 and it was renamed Deutsche Bank Center.

Site

Deutsche Bank Center is on the west side of Columbus Circle, on the border of Hell's Kitchen and the Upper West Side, in Manhattan, New York City. It occupies an irregular plot of land bounded by 60th Street to the north, the Coliseum Park apartment complex to the west, and 58th Street to the south. The eastern boundary consists of Eighth Avenue, Columbus Circle, and Broadway from south to north. The land lot covers , with a frontage of on Columbus Circle and a depth of . Deutsche Bank Center's primary address is 1 Columbus Circle. The building also uses the addresses 25 Columbus Circle for its south tower and 80 Columbus Circle for the north tower.

The building is near Trump International Hotel and Tower to the northeast, Central Park to the east, 2 Columbus Circle and 240 Central Park South to the southeast, and Central Park Place to the south. Entrances to the New York City Subway's 59th Street–Columbus Circle station, served by the , are directly outside the building. As part of the construction of what was then Time Warner Center, the existing subway staircase was refurbished and an elevator was added to the subway entrance. Because the building did not include a zoning bonus, the developers did not need to fund a renovation of the subway station, as Hearst Communications was obligated to do when it built Hearst Tower one block south.

Deutsche Bank Center occupies the site of the New York Coliseum, which itself replaced two city blocks bounded by Columbus Circle, 60th Street, Ninth Avenue, and 58th Street. The Coliseum opened in 1956 as New York City's main convention center, in which capacity it was replaced by Javits Center in the 1980s. Around the same time, the area around Columbus Circle was being redeveloped, in part because of the Coliseum's success. This prompted the Coliseum's owner, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), to place the building up for sale in 1985. An agreement on the site's redevelopment was not finalized until 1998, and designs for the Coliseum replacement itself were not in place until 1999. This was in part due to disagreements over the site, as well as a weak economy in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Architecture

Deutsche Bank Center was designed by David Childs of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM), working with T. J. Gottesdiener and Mustafa K. Abadan of the same firm. Specific portions of the interior were designed by different architects. AOL Time Warner, Apollo Global Management, Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group, Palladium Company, and the Related Companies were the developers. Stephen M. Ross, CEO of the Related Companies, said that SOM had been selected since they "create great architecture but also speak the language of business". Bovis Lend Lease was the construction manager for much of the interior, including mechanical systems. Another 80 to 100 subcontractors were also hired for different parts of construction.

Deutsche Bank Center includes towers to the north and south, joined at the base. The building is split into eight different ownership units: the basement parking garage, the Shops at Columbus Circle mall, Jazz at Lincoln Center's facilities, the original AOL Time Warner office space, the six other office stories, the condominium units in the north and south towers, and the Mandarin Oriental New York hotel. The building has about of interior space in total. About of mechanical and underground space is not counted under zoning law. This gives a gross floor area of , which is close to the maximum area allowed under a floor area ratio of 15. Deutsche Bank Center uses a total of of glass, as well as of steel and of concrete.

Form and facade

The base of Deutsche Bank Center measures wide, as measured from north to south, by deep. The building is designed to face Central Park, with a general trapezoidal shape. Two towers with a parallelogram-shaped massing rise from the base. The towers are aligned with Broadway, which runs diagonally relative to the Manhattan street grid, while the base is aligned with the street grid. The space between the towers is on axis with 59th Street and Central Park South. The western and eastern facades of both towers are aligned 30 degrees counterclockwise from the axis of Eighth Avenue and Central Park West. Both towers are 55 stories tall with a roof height of . The pinnacle of each tower consists of a lantern measuring tall.

The base of Deutsche Bank Center contains a limestone facade with large window openings, which taper off into glass bands. The facade of the upper stories is clad with glass. There are small, projecting glass fins every , which, from an angle, give the facade the appearance of a myriad of small shards. The glass panes were initially specified to be thick, but the architects changed the specification during construction to to stiffen the panes. The architects had originally intended for the glass to be light gray, but a darker shade was later specified. Atop the towers are glass parapets that absorb natural lights.

A multistory cable structure, facing 59th Street across Columbus Circle, serves as the entrance to an atrium between the building's twin towers. The structure consists of a grid of stainless-steel cables apart vertically and apart horizontally. Laminated-glass panels measuring thick are placed within the cables. Spanning across and high, the cable structure was the largest in North America at the time of its completion. It was designed by James Carpenter Design Associates. According to Carpenter, the cable grid was intended "to be as delicate, transparent and diaphanous as possible" to allow simultaneous views into and out of the atrium. Abby Bussel, author of a book about SOM, wrote that the main entrance was intended to "project a civic face to the community" at night.

The southeast corner of the building, at Eighth Avenue and 58th Street, contains a triangular wedge-shaped glass structure measuring about tall. For the first months of the complex's existence, the glass structure was empty. As part of an agreement with the New York City government, the structure could not include advertising. ''Prow Sculpture'', an art installation by David Rome, was then installed in the structure by 2004. This consists of 12 sets of 36 translucent panels, each supported by vertical trusses. The panels each contain light-emitting diodes that change color once every few minutes. The panels also change color to display the time at 15-minute intervals. The lights can be colored to mark special occasions. The artwork requires 200 tons of air conditioning (equivalent to ), as well as frequent cleaning.

Lower stories

The base of the building contains a steel superstructure with the Shops at Columbus Circle, Jazz at Lincoln Center, broadcast studios, and originally AOL Time Warner's headquarters. The towers' concrete superstructures rest above the base. Structurally, the building's base also includes the steel-framed lower sections of both towers. The steel frame extends high below the north tower and high below the south tower. Several column arrangements are used because of the differing needs of each tenant. Twenty-four entrances were originally provided at the base. To avoid interfering with the entrances and other open spaces, the building uses diagonal steel columns; concrete columns with stepped notches; and columns hanging from trusses.

Deutsche Bank Center's foundation is surrounded by a concrete cofferdam measuring deep and across. The building plans were technically an "alteration" to the New York Coliseum, since the building incorporates the Coliseum's underground parking garage. The parking garage, originally leased to the Central Parking Corporation, has 504 spots. The garage spans three stories and has sensors to monitor how many vehicles are parked in the garage. The garage also has a valet parking service. At ground level, the lobby for the south tower's residences is on 58th Street while the north tower's hotel and condominium lobby is on 59th Street. In addition, t here are office lobbies on both 58th and 59th Streets; that on 58th Street originally served the Time Warner lobby.

Mall

Deutsche Bank Center has a four-story retail mall, the Shops at Columbus Circle, which opened in 2004 along with the rest of the complex. Designed by Elkus Manfredi Architects, it was known during planning as the Palladium. The mall's ground-floor tenants include designer shops and restaurants. Among the first retail tenants in the mall was a Whole Foods Market, as well as an Equinox gym, both in the basement. The third and fourth stories contain the Restaurant Collection, with restaurants such as Masa, Per Se, and Porter House New York.

The mall is designed to follow the curve of Columbus Circle, measuring long. It contains an atrium high, leading west from Columbus Circle. This atrium, known as the "Great Room", is about wide and long with . A passageway, extending north and south from the atrium, covers .

Jazz at Lincoln Center

Within the base of Deutsche Bank Center is Frederick P. Rose Hall, a complex for Jazz at Lincoln Center, designed by Rafael Viñoly. It was proposed with two auditoriums, two rehearsal studios, a cafe, and a classroom. It consists of three venues. The Rose Theater, on the fifth floor, is the primary venue for Jazz at Lincoln Center, with 1,100 to 1,300 seats. The Appel Room, originally the Allen Room, is above the atrium with a large glass wall facing Columbus Circle, with space for up to 600 seats. Dizzy's Club is named after trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie and contains 140 seats. Jazz at Lincoln Center's space at Rose Hall also includes the Ertegun Atrium, facing Central Park, as well as the Nesuhi Ertegun Jazz Hall of Fame.

Rose Theater is acoustically separated from the rest of Deutsche Bank Center. The auditorium, weighing , is supported by 26 insulating gaskets on concrete footings. The gaskets consist of steel plates measuring thick, between which are neoprene synthetic-rubber pads. There are also neoprene pads, measuring thick, on the wall of the auditorium. Steven H. Sommer of Bovid Lend Lease, the hall's construction manager, compared the layout to "a small cardboard box in a larger cardboard box packed with Styrofoam peanuts".

In 2005, Jazz at Lincoln Center announced a partnership with XM Satellite Radio, which gave XM studio space at Rose Hall to broadcast both daily jazz programming and special events. Anderson Cooper's daytime talk show, '' Anderson,'' recorded in Jazz at Lincoln Center's Allen Room from 2011 to 2012.

Studios

The eighth floor of the north tower has studios originally designed for Time Warner's subsidiary CNN. The studios were designed by Kostow Greenwood Architects, with scenic design by Production Design Group. The CNN studios covered or on five full stories and portions of two others. The spaces covered floors four through nine. The complex consisted of three large " black box" studios, three smaller studios, two newsrooms, and four control rooms. The black-box studios overlooked the park, as did one of the newsrooms, designed for financial news subsidiary CNNfn.

The wide studio spaces required the columns to be spaced apart. To accommodate large overhead lights, SOM omitted alternating floor slabs so CNN's studios contained a floor-to-ceiling height of . The studio floors were flattened to prevent camera equipment from vibrating, and thick insulating pads were placed under the floors. In addition, double walls were placed in each studio: an inner wall connecting to the studio floor and an outer wall connected to the rest of the building. Observation windows were placed near the top of the studio walls. The studios had their own power and backup control systems. A dedicated freight elevator was also installed so large props and pieces of sets could be carried into and out of the studios.

The CNNfn newsroom was designed so cameras could pan over the width of the room. Materials such as vinyl partitions and striped carpet tiles were selected according to how they looked on digital cameras. A feature of the CNNfn newsroom was double-tiered wooden oval desks, often shown in wide shots of the newsroom; the desks themselves were arranged in a curve. Kostow Greenwood redesigned the offices for CNNfn, later CNNMoney, in 2013. Among the changes were the addition of office modules along the walls of some of the 27-foot-tall spaces. CNN's studios in Time Warner Center operated until the network relocated to 30 Hudson Yards in 2019.

Offices

At the building's completion, it had a total office area of approximately . About was used as the headquarters for Time Warner. Time Warner's offices were designed by HLW International, though Perkins and Will oversaw the final fit-out of the office spaces. The Time Warner offices originally accommodated 1,600 employees on 17 floors in the building's southern section. Time Warner's former spaces are spanned by beams. Ten stories were designed as corporate offices in conjunction with Mancini Duffy; the corporate offices contained wooden millwork, as well as gray-and-gold finishes on the walls and carpets. Meeting rooms had curved walls with encaustic finishes and brightly colored accents. Floor spaces were arranged in a modular format, with three offices or four workstations to a module, and meeting areas and copying rooms were placed in uniform positions throughout each floors. According to Mancini Duffy's director of design, "mullions, frames, reveals, and the use of painted drywall, glass, and millwork" served to enhance the design of the office corridors.

There were originally of offices not used by AOL Time Warner. The non-Time Warner offices covered six stories. Half of this space was initially occupied by Apollo and Related, two of the developers, after they had difficulty marketing the space; the other half was purchased by Time Warner. , almost all of the building's office space, including both the Time Warner office space and the other space, is occupied by Deutsche Bank.

Upper stories

The apartments and hotel rooms of the upper floors have a concrete superstructure, since they did not need the large column spacing or small columns that a steel superstructure would offer. The concrete superstructures weigh each. There is a truss at the 17th floor of the north tower, above the ground, and at the 23rd floor of the south tower, above the ground. The trusses distribute the weight of the concrete above to the steel columns below; they also contain ducts, elevator rooms, and hallways between the emergency stairwells of the towers and the base. Each tower also has a concrete core measuring across, which extends to the layer of Manhattan schist below the building. The cores are up to thick at the base.

Hotel

The north tower contains the Mandarin Oriental New York hotel, designed by Brennan Beer Gorman. The hotel contains 248 units in total, composed of 202 guestrooms and 46 suites. The Mandarin Oriental New York spans floors 35 through 54, taking up in Deutsche Bank Center. The hotel in general is designed in an Art Deco-inspired Asian contemporary style. The interior decorations were mostly created by Hirsch Bedner Associates, except for the Asiate restaurant, which was designed by Tony Chi. , Reliance Industries owns a majority stake in the hotel.

The only entrance to the hotel is from 60th Street, where there are elevators to the hotel lobby. The ground-floor vestibule, designed as an ellipse, contains a glass chandelier by Dale Chihuly. Floor 35 contains the hotel lobby, the Asiate restaurant, and the MObar lounge. Also in the hotel is a two-story, spa. There is also a fitness center with a lap pool overlooking Central Park, as well as banquet rooms and ballrooms. Each of the guest rooms has a different set of decorations with Asian artwork and complex color schemes, as well as full-height windows. The layouts of the different hotel suites also vary.

Residences

Both towers contain residences, though they begin 24 stories above ground in the south tower and 37 stories above ground in the north tower. The north-tower residences are marketed as the Residences at Mandarin Oriental, while the south-tower residences are marketed as One Central Park, despite the fact that there is no street named Central Park. There are 66 residences in the north tower, occupying sixteen stories. The residents of the north tower are given access to the Mandarin Oriental New York's amenities, being treated as if they were permanent guests of the hotel. These include spa and health club access as well as room service. The south tower has 133 or 134 residences, occupying twenty-nine stories. The condominiums have multiple entrances, including through the hotel, garage, and mall.

Ismael Leyva Architects designed the One Central Park residences, with furnishings by Thad Hayes. Leyva's furnishings include granite floors and counters, as well as marble tilesand appliances. The residential condominiums all have ceilings measuring high, with full-height windows providing views of the Hudson River to the west. Four different floor plans are used in the towers, and the spaces are spanned by beams.

The top stories of each tower are marketed as floor 80, though this story is actually the 53rd-story penthouse. The tops of each tower are designed with five full-story penthouse condominiums, measuring and spanning a full floor. Unlike the other residences, the penthouses were originally offered as unfurnished spaces. Related Companies CEO Stephen Ross had occupied one of the full-story penthouses in the south tower until he listed it for sale in 2019.

Mechanical features

Deutsche Bank Center includes a system of four emergency diesel generators for the residential tenants, each capable of . The base is powered by two diesel generators, also capable of . There is also a uninterruptable power system that runs at all times. The backup generation system powers three elevators, as well as lighting in each hallway and apartment intercoms, in case of emergencies. Two service rooms were installed by Zwicker Electric. The heating, ventilation, and air conditioning system was automated, increasing its efficiency by 10 to 15 percent.

As part of the construction of Time Warner Center, its developers spent $21 million on technological advances. From the building's opening, the entirety of Time Warner Center was equipped with Wi-Fi, which at the time was still relatively uncommon in New York City buildings. A direct Ethernet connection was also included in the building when it was built, and each residence had an in-house internet phone service. In addition, residents received a notebook computer that served as their "digital concierge", where they could look up the building's restaurants, stores, and entertainment areas. The security screening systems at the elevators contained fingerprint readers. While the Wi-Fi services were available to visitors for a fee, the other tech services were only offered to residents and Mandarin Oriental hotel guests. Time Warner provided internet service for its own office space, but the residences and hotel rooms were served by RCN's network instead, because RCN service was less expensive than Time Warner service.

History

Planning

After putting the Coliseum up for sale in 1985, the MTA received numerous bids for the redevelopment of the site. Mortimer Zuckerman's Boston Properties won the bidding contest, with plans to erect a headquarters for Salomon Brothers on the site, to be designed by Moshe Safdie. The community heavily opposed Zuckerman's initial plan, and the sale was nullified in 1987, with Salomon Brothers withdrawing from the project.

Competing plans

New York City and Boston Properties first hired David Childs in 1987 to design the Coliseum replacement, to be known as Columbus Center. Childs's initial plan, released in June 1988, called for a set of brick-and-glass towers rising as high as . Similar to what would ultimately be built, the complex would have been composed of a set of twin towers. Childs's plan faced heavy opposition from the community, leading to a redesign of the project. His second proposal was published in April 1988, with a twin-towered complex rising , as well as a pedestrian bridge connecting the two towers. This plan, too, faced political opposition and lawsuits. Following the prolonged delays, Zuckerman and the MTA severed negotiations for the site in 1994. Related CEO Stephen Ross had proposed converting the Coliseum into a Kmart store, though nothing came of that plan. As a result, Ross contacted his friend, Kenneth A. Himmel, to devise a proposal for the site.

Planning for Columbus Center restarted in May 1996, with the MTA outlining several criteria for the shape of the proposed development, as well as a stipulation that the winner could not seek tax breaks. The city and MTA received nine proposals for the site that November. The Municipal Art Society displayed models of these proposals to gauge public opinion for the project. By May 1997, the city and MTA had selected five finalists: Related Companies, Trump Organization, Tishman Speyer, Bruce C. Ratner & Daniel Brodsky

HOME


Content is Copyleft
Website design, code, and AI is Copyrighted (c) 2014-2017 by Stephen Payne


Consider donating to Wikimedia



As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases