The Flatiron Building, 25 Water Street, old Pfizer World Headquarters, Pearl House, 55 Broad Street—these are just a few New York addresses slated for office-to-residential conversion. Now add another one to list: 5 Times Square. Ernst & Young built 5 Times Square in 2002 for its headquarters, with Kohn Pedersen Foxas the design architect, but the corporation vacated the premises in 2022. The vacancy rate has hovered around 75 percent ever since. Now, Gensler is converting 5 Times Square into a residential property fitted with 1,250 market rate and affordable homes. Gensler is also behind a number of other prominent office-to-residential conversions in New York today, including Pearl House and the old Pfizer World HQ, as reported by AN. 5 Times Square rises 575 feet in a 38 story envelope. Governor Hochul affirmed that, of the new 1,250 units, 313 of those will be affordable, or roughly a quarter’s worth. No changes need be made to the building envelope, city officials shared, because the floor plates are already “well-suited” for residential purposes. “Confronting a decades-long housing crisis requires creating new housing in every neighborhood at an accelerated pace—even here at the ‘Crossroad of the World’ in Times Square,” Mayor Adams said in a statement. “The transformation of 5 Times Square from an underutilized office building into 1,250 new homes capitalizes on hard-fought Adams and Hochul administration victories while fulfilling my plan to build 100,000 new homes in Manhattan over the next decade.” 5 Times Square totals approximately 1 million square feet. Of that number, over 900,000 square feet will be converted into residential space, while about 40,000 square feet will remain retail. The initiative is part of Mayor Adams’s Manhattan Plan, which seeks to add 100,000 new homes in Manhattan in the next decade. The conversion was made possible by an amendment to the 42nd Street Development General Project Plan, announced yesterday by Adams, Hochul, and the Empire State DevelopmentBoard of Directors. Deputy Mayor for Housing, Economic Development, and Workforce Adolfo Carrión, Jr. called 5 Times Square’s conversion “a game-changer for Times Square and Midtown, paving the way for the future of urban growth.” Construction should begin by the end of 2025 and complete in 2027. #gensler #convert #times #square #former