History
The groundbreaking ceremony took place on December 4, 2012. Early construction work focused on building a platform to cover much of the Eastern Rail Yard, for much of Phase 1 to sit upon and to allow the Gateway Rail Tunnel project to pass underground with a clear path. The platform is rested on caissons that are drilled underground into the solid bedrock known as Manhattan schist. On December 12, 2013, it was announced that Tutor Perini Building Corp. was awarded a US$510 million contract to build the platform.[7]
In 2013, Time Warner (later WarnerMedia, and now Warner Bros. Discovery) announced its intention to move most of its offices to 30 Hudson Yards, vacating its current headquarters at the Time Warner Center, also owned by Related, at Columbus Circle.[8] The company would occupy half the building, below the 38th floor.[9][10]
In mid-2015, Related received a $690 million loan from Bank of America, Wells Fargo, and CIBC which allowed construction to start.[11][12] By January 2016, the structure's first few aboveground floors were already complete.[13] Construction of the observation deck at the top of the tower began in April 2018.[14][15] The observation deck was nearly complete by mid-2018.[16][17][18]
In January 2019, WarnerMedia hired Douglas Harmon and Adam Spies of Cushman & Wakefield to find a buyer that would sell their office condominium and allow the company to lease it back—known as a sale-leaseback. WarnerMedia's office condo included more than 1.4 e6sqft on floors 16 through 51 and represented approximately 60 percent of the 90-story tower with 2.6 e6sqft.[20]
The building opened on March 15, 2019.[21][22] One month later, WarnerMedia executed a leaseback and sold their space to Related and Allianz for $2.2 billion after signing a 15-year lease for 1.5 e6sqft.[23] The sale closed in June 2019.[24] The partners financed the purchase with a 10-year, $1.43 billion commercial mortgage-backed security interest-only loan from Deutsche Bank, Wells Fargo, and Goldman Sachs.[25] In June, KKR took out a $490 million mortgage from Deutsche Bank on their office condominium space.[26]
