25 Water Street

Originally known as 4 New York Plaza, the building began construction in 1967 and was completed in 1969. It was built in a Brutalist style and was designed by the architecture firm Carson, Lundin & Shaw.[2][1][3] Construction proceeded remarkably quickly, with only 26 months from the beginning of design to the first tenants moving in.[4] The building included among its first tenants the Manufacturers Hanover Trust Company[5] and Oppenheimer & Co.[6] The building was designed as an operations center that would process the banking and financial activities of Manufacturers Hanover, such as collecting and recording checks.[4] To make air-conditioning the bulky 1970s-era computers more efficient, the building was created with relatively few windows from the 3rd to 15th floors, and the windows were narrow. Slightly more windows were included on the 2nd floor, intended for Manufacturers Hanover staff, and the top 7 floors, intended to be leased out. The reddish-brown brick exterior was chosen to match the style of historic buildings from the Dutch era of New Amsterdam, such as the Stadt Huys Site.[4] The building won an architectural award in the era. However, the building's narrow windows were generally criticized by later audiences after the building's use as a data center stopped.[7][8] Many of the historic brick buildings the exterior was designed to blend in with were torn down in the decade following construction.[3]

After Manufacturers Hanover merged with Chemical Bank in 1992, facilities of the combined bank were housed in 4 New York Plaza.[9] JPMorgan Chase owned the building by the 1990s, after it acquired Chemical Bank. By 2009, JPMorgan Chase had placed 4 New York Plaza and several other buildings for sale in the aftermath of the 2007–2008 financial crisis.[10] The bank sold the property to Capstone Equities and Harbor Group in December 2009 for $108.9 million.[11][12] The buyers agreed to lease back space in the building they were already using, becoming a major tenant of the building instead.[13] The New York Daily News newspaper leased space at 4 New York Plaza in 2010[14] and moved there in June 2011.[15] Harbor Group sold the building in 2012 to HSBC Alternative Investments and Edge Fund Advisors for $270 million.[16][17]

Flooding caused by Superstorm Sandy was very damaging to Lower Manhattan in 2012, with water damage to mechanical and electrical systems that often resided in basements. Like other buildings on Water Street, 4 New York Plaza was significantly affected by the flooding.[18][1] It was not until late 2013 that the biggest tenants, JPMorgan and the New York Daily News, returned to the building.[19] Due to financial troubles resulting from the decline of newspapers as well as the coronavirus pandemic, the Daily News abandoned the building in 2020, leaving the newspaper without a physical newsroom.[20] JPMorgan also sought to cut back usage in 2021, attempting to sublet excess space no longer needed due to the rise of hybrid work.[13][21]

In general, office rents in New York collapsed after the coronavirus pandemic, with an office space vacancy rate of 17–18% pushing down rents.[22] Jeffrey Gural and Metro Loft Management were looking to buy the building by mid-2022.[23] In December 2022, Edge Funds and HSBC Alternative Investments sold the property. The new owners—GFP Real Estate and Metroloft, with the cooperation of Rockwood Capital—wished to convert the building to residential use.[24][25]

The new owners renamed the property from "4 New York Plaza" to "25 Water Street" and sought to redevelop the building. Changes in local regulations helped; the mayoral administration of Eric Adams has encouraged projects to build more housing, and rolled out zoning changes and tax breaks designed to ease such conversions.[7] The new owners secured a loan of $536 million to support the redevelopment. The company CetraRuddy will handle the architecture of the redeveloped building; the plan is to add 10 more floors to the existing 22 floors for a resulting new height of 32 floors. The red-brown brick exterior of the structure will either be replaced or repainted a light beige as part of the work. Around 1,300 new apartments are planned for the redeveloped building; if the project completes as expected, it will be the largest such office-to-residential conversion in the country.[26][8]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to 4 New York Plaza.

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  View of the top floor during redevelopment in 2023
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  View of the top floor as workers demolish parts of the old structure