The Empire State Development, a department within the New York State government, has approved the office-to-housing conversion of 5 Times Square in the heart of Manhattan.
The 38-story property at the southern end of Times Square was built in 2002 as the headquarters for Ernst & Young. However, the company left the building in 2022, and it has since recorded a 77% vacancy rate.
The building will be converted into a mixed-use complex that repurposes nearly 1 million square feet of office space into a mix of 1,050 studio and 200 one-bedroom units; up to 313 permanently affordable units will be part of the housing component. The property will also retain more than 37,000 square feet of retail space.
Construction is expected to start in the third quarter of this year, with the first phase anticipated to be completed in 2027.
“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,” said New York City Mayor Eric Adams 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.”
Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
