New York’s Addiction to Building Big
New York has always built tall, but in the last decade it hasn’t just gone vertical — it has gone super-sized. While most American cities have scaled down, focusing on mixed-use developments or more modest office projects, New York keeps producing mega-towers of two to three million square feet. The result is landscape filled with spaces for corporate giants that few companies can realistically fill.
In today’s world of hybrid work, shrinking footprints, and rising vacancies; where other cities have adjusted, New York has doubled down.Hudson Yards: Oversized from the Start
10 Hudson Yards (2016) — 1.8M sq ft
The first piece of Hudson Yards opened with big tenants like Coach and L’Oréal, but its cavernous floorplates — some as large as suburban office campuses — lock it into a model that assumes long-term demand for vast corporate offices.
30 Hudson Yards (2019) — 2.6M sq ft
Best known for its tourist-friendly Edge sky deck, the 1,296-foot tower is also one of the largest office buildings built in America in decades. Yet its size is a liability as much as a boast: if tenants like Warner Bros. Discovery ever consolidate or contract, the building would be nearly impossible to refill.
50 Hudson Yards (2022) — 2.9M sq ft
At nearly three million square feet, this Foster + Partners design is one of the most ambitious corporate real estate bets in history. BlackRock’s headquarters relocation gives it prestige, but the rest of the space has to compete in a market already saturated with supply.
55 Hudson Yards (2019) — 1.3M sq ft
The smallest of the Hudson Yards office towers is still bigger than most towers in San Francisco. Its grid-like facade masks a scale that ties tenants to enormous leases — contracts many companies now regret signing elsewhere.
The Spiral (2023) — 2.85M sq ft
Bjarke Ingels’ twisting tower, lined with terraces, markets itself as a green alternative to the glass box. But beyond its photogenic design, the building is yet another gamble on the idea that tenants still want millions of square feet concentrated in one place.
Manhattan West: A Risky Twin Set
One Manhattan West (2019) — 2.1M sq ft
Built next to Penn Station, this tower brought new glass and steel to an area long dominated by older stock. But the timing is questionable: its trading floor–style layouts assume a Wall Street appetite for concentrated headcount that has already begun to fade.
Two Manhattan West (2023) — 2.0M sq ft
Its sibling tower mirrors One Manhattan West in size and look. Together, they’ve added more than 4 million square feet of new office space in a city still struggling to lease existing towers.
Midtown East: Betting on Consolidation
One Vanderbilt (2020) — 1.7M sq ft
Next to Grand Central, One Vanderbilt has become an instant landmark. But its mix of offices, restaurants, and an observatory hints at a deeper issue: pure office demand alone may not have justified its $3 billion price tag.
270 Park Avenue (2025) — 2.5M sq ft
JPMorgan Chase is bulldozing an entire city block for a headquarters meant to house 14,000 workers. In theory, it’s a symbol of corporate strength. In practice, it’s a high-stakes bet that a banking giant will need — and actually use — such a massive, centralized space in the era of remote work.
The World Trade Center: A Rebuilt Giant with Familiar Problems
One World Trade Center (2015 move-ins) — ~3.1M sq ft
Three million square feet inside a fortress-like tower sounded logical when it was planned. But leasing has been slow, with government agencies stepping in where corporate demand fell short. Its symbolic value outweighs its commercial success.
3 World Trade Center (2018) — 2.5M sq ft
The diagonally braced glass tower offers flexibility, but it adds millions more square feet into a downtown market that has historically struggled to absorb supply.
4 World Trade Center (2013, fully leased in the 2010s) — 2.3M sq ft
Sleek and reflective, 4 WTC was supposed to symbolize Downtown’s resurgence. Yet even with full tenancy, its size reinforces the same problem: New York consistently builds towers far larger than most companies can reasonably occupy today.
Still Underway
70 Hudson Yards (under construction) — 1.1M sq ft
With Deloitte signed on, the building is viable — but its existence shows New York’s insistence on adding massive office blocks even when vacancies remain stubbornly high.
350 Park Avenue (in approvals) — 1.8M sq ft
Backed by Citadel, this proposal is another tower designed for a single, ultra-rich tenant. If Citadel shifts strategy, the building risks becoming an expensive white elephant.
The Bigger Picture
In San Francisco, Salesforce Tower tops out at 1.4 million square feet — large, but less than half the size of 50 Hudson Yards. In Chicago, Willis Tower remains the only true super-sized tower, and it’s nearly 50 years old. Elsewhere in the country, cities have stopped building like this entirely.
New York is the outlier. Its office developers still build as if the corporate world will always need — and want — millions of square feet stacked into a single skyscraper. The reality is far less certain. These towers are undeniably impressive feats of engineering. But they may also be monuments to a moment in office culture that is already slipping away.