Nordstrom Tower aims to surpass 1WTC

Adrian Smith, his old firm SOM, and two pairs of towers now find themselves locked in A multi-year race for the record bookS

by TODD STOLARSKI | May 15, 2015

According to top secret documents, it appears the recently completed One World Trade Center, designed by SOM, may soon have to take a figurative step back as the tallest building in the Western Hemisphere. The original plans for another Manhattan skyscraper, the Nordstrom Tower on West 57th Street, had topped out just a foot shy of 1WTC's intentionally patriotic height of 1,776 ft. This month, however, New York YIMBY ("Yes, In My Back Yard") reports that 20 ft were added to the midtown tower last spring, pushing its projected height up to 1,795 ft, once completed in 2018.

Designed by Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture (AS+GG) for Extell Development Company, it's no surprise that the concrete structure, now being built by Bovis Lend Lease, has been coy about its record-flirting size. The architect's other, even more ambitious skyscraper, the Kingdom Tower, now rising in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, is aiming for the world record currently held by Dubai's 2,723-ft-tall Burj Khalifa, which coincidentally was designed by Adrian Smith in his previous life at SOM. According to our crosstown neighbors at the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat, the Kingdom Tower, itself, will officially claim the "world's tallest" crown in 2018 at a jaw-dropping 3,281 ft. No telling, of course, how long that fleeting honor will stay in Jeddah, though.