550 Washington Street

The redevelopment of 550 Washington Street in Manhattan, New York, will create a new cutting-edge 1.3 million square foot commercial office building for Google. Located at the corner of Houston and West Streets in Hudson Square, the building will span two entire city blocks, and is adjacent to Hudson River Park’s Pier 40 at the intersection of the West Village, SoHo and Tribeca. The project methodology took the form of an adaptive re-use plan that involved the construction of an additional nine floors above the existing three-story rail freight terminal building, which was constructed at the High Line in 1934. The additional floors nearly tripled the building height from 80 feet to 232 feet. The plan incorporates and showcases the original three-story building, as well as the railbeds as central design features. The building’s façade will allow for more than 400 linear feet of unobstructed west-facing water views, providing breathtaking views of the widest sunset in New York City. Construction of the new building has advanced significantly, topping out in Fall 2020. The project is expected to be complete by early 2022. Once finished, the 12-story building will house up to 8,000 Google employees, with 100,000 square foot floor plates over two city blocks —a rare scope for commercial buildings in Manhattan. The project is expected to enhance the local neighborhood’s public infrastructure connectivity, with the removal of the West Houston Street overpass and installation of a new crosswalk over the West Side Highway. It will also add an abundance of new and native landscaping of open space and connect the neighborhood with nearby park and open space.