$2.5B tower completed in Times Square

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Dive Brief:

• A team of architects, designers and contractors have completed construction on the $2.5 billion mixed-use development known as TSX Broadway, a 47-story tower located on the site of an old Broadway theater in New York City at the corner of Seventh Avenue and 47th Street, according to a news release shared with Construction Dive from Mancini Duffy, the lead architect on the project.
• The New York City-based firm worked alongside its hometown construction partner, Pavarini McGovern, a part of STO Building Group, to raise the Palace Theater 30 feet and create a 661-room hotel, per the release. The refurbished theater is now positioned in the tower’s third-to-eighth floors. Structure Tone, another STO Building Group outfit, then led the interior fit-out of the hotel and theater.
• The mixed-use development also contains a bar and lounge with one of Times Square’s largest outdoor terraces and approximately 100,000 square feet of retail and entertainment space.

Dive Insight:

The development process for TSX Broadway wasn’t entirely scot-free — financing was already in place when the COVID-19 pandemic struck, and demolition of the previous building on the site started in 2019, but the team ran into scheduling delays as a result of the pandemic.

In addition, to meet the requirements of its original building permit, the contracting team had to ensure TSX Broadway kept at least 25% of the footprint of the old 36-story building.

However, the pandemic brought a silver lining — with New York City cleared of people at the time, builders were able to reap the benefits of less crowds.

“When it came to coordinating around people and cars and traffic, it actually has been a help,” Robert Israel, executive vice president at TSX Broadway developer L&L Holding Co., told Construction Dive in 2021.

Among the biggest challenges of the project were making sure that each piece of the tower — from the hospitality, to retail, to concert segments and the theater — fit together in a seamless way, said William Mandara Jr., Mancini Duffy’s CEO, in the release. Visitors can go from seeing a show on Broadway to a concert on the square within hours, not to mention the retail aspects.

“Even by New York City standards, this was a complicated project,” Mandara Jr. said.

To move the theater, the construction team used a piece of equipment that was a structural steel shoring post and hydraulic jack hybrid in order to lift the 14 million-pound venue up to its new home within the tower. 

Once in place, the theater received a $50 million overhaul — the team gave it a new third-floor lobby, a new backstage area and new restrooms with 91% more fixtures than the pre-2019 Palace Theatre, according to the architect.

The development also features one of the largest LED screens in Times Square, measuring in at 18,000 square feet. The screen contains a one-of-a-kind cantilevering performance stage that transforms the famous landmark’s pedestrian plaza into an outdoor concert venue, according to the architect.