Inside The Eugene, Brookfield's First Residential Tower At Manhattan West
The first resident is moving in to Brookfield's new 62-floor luxury apartment building in Hudson Yards on Saturday. Rents start at $3,200/month to live in the building designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, with interiors by RW Studios.
When construction is completed, The Eugene at 435 West 31st St. will have 844 new apartments. Most will be studios and one-bedrooms, but the building also has a few two- and three-bedroom apartments.
The Eugene is the first new residential building in the Hudson Yards neighborhood. What was once an old rail yard has become a mecca for large commercial developers to build office towers as plans are afoot to move a growing amount of Manhattan commerce to the area.
Where now there is an empty lot full of construction workers, equipment and a big, deep, green puddle of water visible from the Eugene's leasing office window will soon be part of a vibrant, two-acre landscaped park, connecting the Eugene to nearly 6M SF of office and retail space. It is all part of Brookfield's plan to bring vitality to the new neighborhood.
The building will feature 50K SF of shared amenity space to be used only by residents and their guests.
"For younger Millennials, social media and sharing has become a regular feature of their lives," Brookfield vice president of development Maria Masi said in a media preview of the building. "Here, we tried to build a shared community space focusing on this concept."
The building's amenities include a "crash pad" room where residents can entertain guests with live music, a 24-hour gym run by La Palestra, a rock-climbing wall, a golf simulator, a massage service, an NBA-regulation-sized basketball court, arcade and game rooms, a library and a board game room.
Although the rooftop amenities are not yet finished, Brookfield has plans for a members-only club with a sunroom, a cocktail bar and a private dining room, as well as 4,600 SF of rooftop terrace space featuring a fire pit and BBQ areas all with a panoramic view of Manhattan. Residents will be able to live, work and enjoy entertainment all in the same place, Masi said.
The building held a lottery for 169 affordable apartments for residents earning 60% of Area Median Income and received more than 72,000 applications. Those 169 tenants may struggle to afford all the amenities, because the building will charge additional fees for use of most of the rooftop as well as the gym and wellness features.
The building sits on one of the busiest public transportation corridors in North America with Penn Station, waiting to undergo its own massive redevelopment, roughly three blocks away. The A, C, E, 2, 3 and 7 Subway lines, as well as Amtrak, the Long Island Railroad and New Jersey Transit are all walking distance from the building. Although most neighboring buildings are under construction, one noticeable neighbor is the Fashion Institute of Technology, which has a campus across the street.
