15 Park Row

NEW YORK

CHALLENGE

Once the world’s tallest building, a jumble of modifications made by successive owners required this 30-story tower to be painstakingly renovated piece by piece. As a NYC landmark, the work was subject to extensive and complex regulation.

PROMONT APPROACH

On first inspection, we realized that this stately building had been through a lot over the years: Original floor plans had been moved and varied floor-by-floor. Steel supports had to be identified manually by feeling around in the walls. We discovered several dispersed mechanical rooms that provided inconsistent utilities to tenants. It was clear that the architect’s new drawings—though aesthetically superb—would require significant rethinking. An early priority was to realign the building’s MEP. By unifying the mechanical’s, the owner could provide more reliable utilities for an upgraded tenant experience. Working our way up, we approached each floor as a distinct chapter in the bigger story of 15 Park Row. The result is a cohesive look, feel and style, with a distinctive character that fits the reality of each floor plan. Recently, we completed a floor-to-ceiling revamp of the building’s lobby, fusing the splendor of the original brass and marble with a new warmth of wood and inlaid LEDs.

We approached the project by dividing different aspects of the jobs into four individual projects. We have successfully completed three out of the four phases and are currently expecting to complete that final phase by end of summer of 2019. There have been many different people and trades that have walked this building over the years that we have been working there and we were accustomed the hearing from them how ” this must be the most difficult renovation project in NYC” and we couldn’t agree more. We got it done and we got it done so well that if the original builders were around from the 1897 and they walked the building they would be amazed by what we have accomplished.

Fogarty Finger Architecture