Swanke Hayden Connell Architects

Harlem’s first new office tower since 1973 is about to rise from the site of a former parking lot on the corner of 125th Street and Park Avenue. Designed by Swanke Hayden Connell Architects, the twenty-one story, 600,000 square foot Harlem Tower will seek a LEED Silver rating and is developer Vornado’s first project in Manhattan north of Central Park. Green features include a low-flow plumbing system and natural light that will reach seventy-five percent of interior occupied spaces. Architectural Record called the design “an irregular composition of stacked boxes - like Jenga blocks- that temper the building’s stature.” Integrating the building into the context of the neighborhood was critical for Swanke Hayden given the intense opposition to a previous plan for the site that involved a fifty-one story hotel.