One of those "bests" was 500 West 34th Street, previously known as the World Product Centre. “It’s the best site in all of Hudson Yards," Mr. Barnett told us at the time. "It's overlooking everything, and it's right on top of the new subway.”

That is almost exactly what he told the Post's Steve Cuozzo in revealing that the project is back on. So singular is the project Extell is now calling it One Hudson Yards. As you can imagine, the developer across the street actually developing the 26-acre megadevelopment of the same name was none too pleased with the announcement.

Was Barnett worried the name might steam up Related chief Stephen M. Ross?

“I’m not interested in steaming up anybody, much less Steve Ross,” Barnett told us.

But Ross fumed, “I don’t know why he is trying to deceive tenants and the public."

Oh that Gary Barnett—so coy!

But the name is not the only thing underscoring his savvy on this project. Consider how he managed to get the MTA to help prep the site for his tower to rise.

Barnett said he’s cooperated closely with the MTA on the new subway station and helped the agency assemble the site. He said station construction also put in place some of the foundation for his tower, which will reduce Extell’s cost and allow it to build swiftly.

“We have the ability to begin vertical construction by the end of the year,” he said, “and the ability for our tenants to do their buildouts in 2015.”

As the battle for tenants heats up—not only at Hudson Yards but the World Trade Center, too, and possibly even Midtown East as a rezoning of the area is underway—it will be interesting to see how these towers take shape and who of the development titans can claim victory.

Another sellout for Stern? (Related)

The Stern tower next to its taller neighbors. (Related)

It may be bigger than Baltimore or Stamford, and it will probably be prettier, too. The plans for Hudson Yards continue to impress, as the office towers get refined and high-profile firms sign up to do the residential buildings. The first big news was that High Line designers Diller Scofidio + Renfro would be responsible for one of the apartment buildings, and now The Observer has learned that none other than money-minting godhead Robert A.M. Stern is designing another.

Steve Ross has actually been a regular client of Mr. Stern's in the past.

The architect has completed a number of residential developments for The Related Companies both in New York and around the country, among them the Chatham and Brompton on the Upper East Side, the Westminster in Chelsea and two towers in Battery Park City. The latest project, Superior Ink (where Mr. Ross purchased an apartment for $0.00) set the record for a downtown sale when it went for $31.5 million two years ago.

Related must hope to be bringing similar sales, and hype, to its nascent project on the Far West Side, where construction of the first office tower, anchored by Coach, is just getting under way. That and the Diller Scofidio tower are expected to be completed around the same time, in 2015. When the Stern tower will come online is unclear, but like its two, it is being built on terra firma, not the platform Related has to build over the Penn Station rail yards, so it will likely be sooner rather than later.

The tower is not technically part of the Hudson Yards, located across 30th Street, on the southwest corner of 10th Avenue, in the crook between the High Line and its spur. The site has hosted a Tom Colicchio food bizarre, a Target-sponsored play ground and other events in the past.

Plans have already been filed with the Department of Buildings to begin working on the project, though Related, which declined to comment for this story, was not planning to announce it officially until next year.

While designs have not been officialized, and could change like those of the KPF-designed office towers, the plan at present is not that dissimilar to what has already appeared in renderings of the site released upon the Coach groundbreaking. They show a red-brick building, similar Superior Ink, rising to more than 40 stories—tall, but not tall by Hudson Yards standards.

Considering the horror Curbed commenters expressed when they saw this project and believed it to be the work of Ishmael Leyva, the developer-friendly boxed-living builder who is the architect of record on this project, The Observer cannot help but wonder what their reaction to the very same building will be now that they know one of their favorites is responsible for it.

mchaban [at] observer.com | @MC_NYC

Special treatment? (Related)

The eastern section (at right) would be exempted from the living wage bill. (Related)

Steve Ross sure knows his way around City Hall (part of the reason he has become one of the most successful developers of his generation). From his start in affordable housing to megadevelopments like the Time Warner Center, Hunter's Point South in Queens and Hudson Yards, Mr. Ross, chairman of the Related Companies, always seems to get just what he wants when the city is involved. One sore spot was the fight over the Kingsbridge Armory, in the Bronx, which was unexpectedly rejected by the City Council three years ago.

The fight centered around whether workers at the armory project, which was to receive a considerable amount of public subsidies, would have to be paid more than minimum wage, something labor unions were lobbying heavily for. That fight led to the eventual proposal of a living wage bill. In an unexpected, if unsurprising, twist, it now turns out City Council Speaker Christine Quinn has carved a portion of Hudson Yards out of the living wage bill, according to The Times.

A large portion of the Hudson Yards project, a 26-acre mixed-use development along the city’s Far West Side, is specifically excluded from the proposed so-called living wage legislation in a draft that was written by Ms. Quinn’s office and is now circulating among supporters of the bill.

Ms. Quinn plans to ask her colleagues next month to approve the long-debated bill, which would require companies and developers that receive substantial city subsidies to pay their employees at least $10 an hour. She had already announced that the legislation would exempt tenants in projects that receive city subsidies from paying the living wage; only the direct employees of the developers and some contractors would be affected.

The Hudson Yards exemption caught many of the bill’s supporters by surprise, according to people who were briefed about the legislation in telephone calls in recent days and in a meeting on Thursday morning.

A Related spokeswoman directed The Observer to Speaker Quinn's office for comment, which declined to discuss the Times' report.

A Quinn spokeswoman told The Times that, "The final version of this bill and its details are still being drafted. The legislation has not been finalized." Presumably this means its parameters, which currently exempt development between 10th and 11th avenues, could still change.

According to a source at City Hall, who was not at liberty to discuss the bill publicly, Related's property is being given the exemption for fear that without it, construction of the commercial towers on the eastern portion of the site could stall. Related recently broke ground on that portion of the project, with Mayor Bloomberg and Speaker Quinn in tow, once Coach agreed to be the anchor tenant of the first commercial tower.

The feeling is that with two more to come, the construction of which it is hoped will catalyze development in the surrounding portion of the neighborhood, it is better to ensure the projects than the wages therein.

"There are a couple special differences here," the source said. "There's a city-specific interest in seeing this through, since we borrowed $3 billion to build a subway out there, which will partly be paid back through commercial development. And there is a particular problem with the yards, versus the development around the Garden or Moynihan Station or elsewhere in the Hudson Yards district, in that you are dealing with the decking, which is especially burdensome."

The council is also trying to determine whether or not the block would be exempted anyway, because it might be de facto grandfathered out of the living wage bill. It has been argued that because of the type of tax benefits and development incentives being offered, it is closer to an as-of-right project than one built with the usual set of negotiated subsidies. In this case, there are subsidies, but they are inflexible and were agreed upon in years past, before the bill passed.

Whether or not this means living wage protections are warranted and appropriate is still to be determined, and could be a topic of great debate among backers of the living wage movement. Still, this provision was pointed to as a reason that other developers could not lobby for their own carve outs in the future.

"We don't want to add any new burdens to hold up that development," another source said.

Update: Even with an exemption for the Related Companies, the Retail Wholesale and Department Store Union supports the bill.

"It's misleading and inaccurate to use Hudson Yards as a litmus test for judging the strength of the final bill," union spokesman Dan Morris said. "We're still on track to get a very progressive bill that goes further than what any other city has done to raise wage standards for taxpayer-subsidized economic development."

"It will fundamentally improve the way EDC, the largest economic development agency of its kind in the country, uses subsidies to structure and negotiate developments deals," he added. "We're proud of what we've accomplished."

mchaban [at] observer.com | @MC_NYC

As one can see from the accompanying chart, Midtown has seen the biggest rise over the past year. This is due to a couple of properties added to the "under construction/expected-soon category"—250 West 55th Street (which is officially back on that list after it was technically considered “postponed” a year ago) and 1045 Avenue of the Americas (which is on the cusp of a construction start).

Hudson Yards (Related) and Manhattan West (Brookfield) have yet to technically make our list because of the indecisiveness on the timing of these projects. Other Midtown additions include 4 Times Square, where there could be some 700,000 square feet available when Condé Nast vacates in 2014, and 114 West 47th Street, where Bank of America will be giving up approximately 300,000 square feet at its lease expiration in 2014.

Despite new construction underway in Midtown South (51 Astor Place with the entire 430,000 square feet available), this hot submarket has seen its big blocks of availability ease substantially, falling to 12 today from 19 just two years ago.

Downtown has seen the opposite effect, with its large blocks rising to 24 from 17 two years ago. Included in the new numbers are 2 and 4 World Financial Center, where it was expected though not assured as recently as a year ago that BofA/Merrill Lynch would be giving up substantial space. Today, those super blocks are first and third (by size) on the total Manhattan list with only 1 World Trade Center separating the two.

In the near-term, don’t be surprised to see a few additions in Midtown and Midtown South (new construction and tenants giving up space) before the numbers start to ease on a further improving economy later in the year.

Robert Sammons, Cassidy Turley

Sure beats the golden arches. (Related)

As if there was not enough anticipation surrounding the construction of Hudson Yards, here is probably the one reason to trump any other: Danny Meyer will be setting up shop on the Far West Side.

The Related Companies and Union Square Hospitality announced a new partnership today, whereby Steve Ross and his globetrotting development company will take a stake in Union Square Events. While not encompassing all of the restauranteurs operations, USE offers more than just catering but also runs the sports venue operations for Mr. Meyers sprawling eatery empire, and now it will do even more. So no fine dining, necessarily, but Mr. Meyer will be offering a range of culinary options, from private residential dining to catering events in Hudson Yards buildings as well as operating restaurants and outdoor cafes.

In a way, Mr. Meyer is keeping things local, as his catering company was founded in the area in 2004 and even used to be named after the neighborhood. "We love the irony that USE was born seven years ago as ‘Hudson Yards Catering’ – and now one of our greatest opportunities to grow will be in Hudson Yards,” Mr. Meyer said in a statement.

The partnership will grow beyond the city, looking to open in other stadia and arenas around the nation, a fit that makes sense since Mr. Ross owns the Miami Dolphins. There are also opportunities in other Related projects around the world. "We look forward to fully integrating their experiential concepts into Hudson Yards and expanding the business through strategic opportunities in sports, entertainment and mixed-use developments both nationally and internationally," Mr. Ross said.

First Brooklyn, then the world.

mchaban [at] observer.com | @MC_NYC

The Flatiron District, one of many suggested "hot" "new" neighborhoods.

Benjamin Fox, a retail broker who has made a name for himself by spotting new neighborhoods before both competitors and youthful trendspotters, was recently leaving an event near 35th Street and 10th Avenue, not too far from the Hudson Yards development site, when he saw pedestrians packing sidewalks in the late-night hours. In that, Mr. Fox saw retail promise.

“I am almost tempted to say that there are no more emerging neighborhoods in New York City,” said Mr. Fox, an executive vice president at Massey Knakal. “[But] I was amazed at the amount of pedestrian traffic on those streets. A year or two ago, you could lie dead on the street and no one would notice your body until the next morning.”

From the far West Side in Manhattan, to the spillover crowds of Williamsburg that have helped revive Bushwick in Brooklyn, retailers and their brokers are breathing new life into existing neighborhoods, many of them long discovered.  Brokers interviewed for this article, in fact, pointed to the Flatiron district and the Upper East Side as “hot” areas.

“It’s sad to say or scary to say, but if you go up and stand outside the Shake Shack on the Upper East Side on a Saturday or Sunday around noon, the line is astronomical,” said Patrick Breslin, an executive vice president of retail at Studley, who also noted an array of new retail leases from H&M and the French perfume company La Fontaine. “It’s unbelievable.”

Meanwhile, with the Hudson Yards development and the Larry Silverstein-spearheaded World Trade Center retail complex slated to open in 2015, retailers and brokers believe that with new space will come bigger retail possibilities.

Mall operator the Westfield Group will launch its 365,000-square-foot retail space in 2015. The project will be linked up with pedestrians-only walkways that are sure to bring retailers desired foot traffic—especially in a place (Lower Manhattan, near the 9/11 attack site) that will attract a chunk of the 45 million tourists who visit the city each year.  Last June, Brookfield Properties unveiled its plans for a $250 million retail redevelopment at the World Financial Center. Given its proximity to Hudson River Park and the new Fulton Street Transit center, foot traffic into the redevelopment will certainly be high.

“Downtown clearly will be back,” said Jeffrey Roseman, executive president with Newmark Knight Frank.

Venture farther north to Hudson Square and you have Trump Soho, increased residential development and an active local office leasing market to thank for improving prospects for future retail growth. Although retail is slow to catch up with the other developments it will be only a matter of time before it does, brokers said.

“The Hudson Square area has just been growing exponentially,” said John Gomes, an executive vice president at Prudential Douglas Elliman.

“We’re almost just at that tipping point of starting to see the emergence that I think is going to have a real mushrooming effect once retail has caught on to the fact that there are people who are ready to explore the neighborhood,” said Amy Williamson, vice president of sales at the Prodigy Group. Retail is slowly coming around.

The area boasts 35,000 office workers and averages a daytime population of 55,000 people, according to the Hudson Square Business Improvement District.

If the area gets more residential development approved—Trinity Real Estate is apparently looking to get the area rezoned to turn some manufacturing space into residential—then it will no longer be “under-retailed,” said Hudson Square Business Improvement District president Ellen Baer during an interview with The Commercial Observer.

“My best retail strategy is to make this a 24/7 community,” she added.

drosen@observer.com

You decide. (Friends of the High Line/YouTube)

That was the easy part.

Now that the High Line has become a smash success, Friends of the High Line has to decided what to do with the third and final section of the elevated park, which surround Hudson Yards. After fighting for decades to preserve and then transform the old rail line, it was not clear this section of track would be preserved or replaced by some alternative park, as the city worked to redevelop the site.

The Related Company and the Bloomberg administration both agreed it should be, and now that their work is underway in creating a new Baltimore on the West Side of Manhattan, so too is the Friends' job of figuring out what should surround it.

That all starts tomorrow night.

Unlike the first two phases of the High Line, which were created by the Friends and their collaborators at Diller Scofidio + Renfro and Field Operations, the park group has decided to open the final phase up to the public for input on what should grow on the tracks in the future.

They even put out a call on YouTube, and the first of what will no doubt be many meetings to discuss the final section of the park is being held tomorrow at 6:30 at P.S. 11 in Chelsea—which should leave enough time to catch the sunset from the High Line before hand.

mchaban [at] observer.com | @MC_NYC

Don't play games with the skyline. (Related)

Big. Really big. As usual, the erudite Charles Bagli puts it into perspective in all of one sentence:

Still, city officials predict that within two decades, Hudson Yards could have more office space than Baltimore or Portland, Ore., and as many apartments as Stamford, Conn.

It's a city in a few city blocks.

The Times sat down with Mayor Michael Bloomberg as well, for a look back at the Olympics that weren't, and how New York may have won anyway.

Even Mr. Bloomberg, who allowed that he “hates to lose,” said that in retrospect, the failure of the Olympic bid may have been a blessing for the city.

“Given what happened to the economy, it would’ve been tough to raise all the money,” Mr. Bloomberg said in an interview.

But, he added, his administration pushed ahead with many of the projects and land-use changes that were contained in the Olympic proposal, not just on the Far West Side, but in other parts of the city as well.

“We thought the Olympics would be the catalyst to get a lot of things that many people thought the city needed,” he said. “In fact, many got done” anyway.

From five rings to three on the Far West Side.

mchaban [at] observer.com | @MC_NYC

Dance, dance evolution... of a building. (Related)

Despite the anticipation surrounding Hudson Yards—a new neighborhood cut from whole cloth, full of open space and affordable housing and not a few shiny new offices, and the jobs that come with it all—the truth was, it wasn't much to look at.  Even the decade-old and not-much-to-look-at-unless-you're-in-on-the-architectural-joke Time Warner Center was flashy by compare. Then, Related's Steve Ross decided he could do better. It is rare for a developer to have such a change of heart, but it appears the city is better off for it.

According to The Journal, not long after Related revealed new renderings for the site, head honcho Steve Ross decided he wanted something more, to attract tenants looking for a bit of panache (but not too much!), and maybe even make a nicer contribution to the skyline.

The design wasn't terrible. But it wasn't the sort of arresting, statement-making architecture that one would expect a next-big-thing type of project. KPF's early designs for the buildings were like Buckingham Palace bobbies: standing straight and erect, faces constant, but not saying much of anything at all.

The new plan for phase one, recently unveiled, describes a much different composition. The 30-story middle building is gone. New renderings show two jagged towers—the more northerly one 67 stories and sloping diagonally toward the city, the other, 51 stories and angled towards the Hudson—that slash through the skyline. Connecting the two buildings will be eight stories of retail and trading-floor space.

For The Journal's Robbie Whelan, even if the buildings alone are not remarkable, together they create a ballet on the skyline.

The mirror-image slopes of the two buildings, which would regard one another differently from nearly every angle of viewing, give viewers the sensation of two dancers in the midst of a paso doble. The southern building, which would house Coach, is, sensibly, the female of the pair —slightly shorter, with the atrium manifested as a slit in the dancer's ball gown, giving a glimpse of a flash of leg underneath.

Vavavoom! The Observer hasn't been this attracted to a new project the Lipstick Building rose on Third Avenue 25 years ago.

mchaban [at] observer.com | @MC_NYC

Coach will move its corporate headquarters and consolidate three New York City offices into the building by 2015. The 1.8 million-square-foot tower, at the northwest corner of West 30^th Street and Tenth Avenue, is one of 14 residential, commercial and retail assets envisioned by the Related Companies at its far West Side development site.

The Coach House.

“Since its founding 70 years ago, in a loft not far from here, Coach has been a recognized leader in fashion accessory design and production,” said Mayor Bloomberg during a groundbreaking earlier today attended by Coach execs and Related officials. “Now, by announcing its intent to anchor a major new Hudson Yards office tower, being developed by the Related Companies, Coach is also leading the way into New York’s future.”

Coach currently owns its offices at 516 West 34^th Street, plus another small building that adjoins it—approximately 250,000 square feet combined, a source said. The company also leases office space at 450 West 33^rd Street, which expires in 2015.

CBRE Chief Executive Mary Ann Tighe, who represented Coach in the transaction alongside Vice Chairman Greg Tosko, noted that the handbag purveyor’s 34^th Street building will be a hot commodity, now that it’s hit the market, because of its zoning.

“They can build very tall buildings on those sites,” said Ms. Tighe. “If I were a betting person, I would bet it would [be developed as] a residential tower.”

Related Companies will also move its offices to Hudson Yards, Chief Executive Stephen Ross announced at the press conference attended by Bloomberg and an assortment of other politicians and real estate industry leaders. It is not yet known which tower Related will occupy, or how many feet they will take, a spokesperson for Related said.

Coach has been in the neighborhood for decades and in Manhattan for 70 years. They began planning to consolidate their offices more than four years ago but ultimately chose the Hudson Yards complex for its proximity to the High Line Park, Ms. Tighe said.

Tenants who take advantage of leasing the first five million square feet of commercial space at the complex will receive a 40 percent break in “pilot payments,” while those inking deals for the next five million feet will get a 25 percent break, said a spokesman for the Related Companies. These tax abatements are good for 15 years, the spokesperson said.