Deutsche Bank Center

Deutsche Bank Center is a very tall building in Manhattan, New York City. It is also called One Columbus Circle and used to be named Time Warner Center. The building has two very tall towers that are the tallest matching towers in the United States. These towers are connected by a big open space called an atrium.

The building has many uses. People can live there in apartments, work in offices, stay in a fancy hotel called the Mandarin Oriental, New York, and enjoy music at Jazz at Lincoln Center. There is also a shopping place called The Shops at Columbus Circle and a big grocery store at the bottom.

Before this building was built, there was a place called the New York Coliseum where many events happened. Building started in 2000 and the building opened in 2004. In 2021, a company named Deutsche Bank became the main tenant and the building got its current name.

Site

The Deutsche Bank Center is located on the west side of Columbus Circle, right where Hell's Kitchen and the Upper West Side meet in Manhattan, New York City, United States. It sits on a special piece of land bordered by 60th Street to the north, the Coliseum Park apartments to the west, and 58th Street to the south. The east side is along Eighth Avenue, Columbus Circle, and Broadway. The building's main address is 1 Columbus Circle, but it also uses 25 Columbus Circle for its south tower and 80 Columbus Circle for the north tower.

Nearby places include the Trump International Hotel and Tower, Central Park, 2 Columbus Circle, 240 Central Park South, and Central Park Place. You can also find entrances to the New York City Subway’s 59th Street–Columbus Circle station right outside, serving several train lines. The building was built where the old New York Coliseum used to stand. The Coliseum opened in 1956 and was New York City’s main convention center until the Javits Center took over in the 1980s. The site was sold in 1985, but it took until 1998 to agree on redevelopment plans.

Architecture

Deutsche Bank Center was designed by David Childs of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM), working with other architects. Companies like AOL Time Warner, Apollo Global Management, and the Related Companies developed the building.

The building has two towers connected at the base and includes many different spaces like offices, homes, a hotel, and shopping areas. It covers about 2.8 million square feet and uses a lot of glass, steel, and concrete.

The base of the building has a wide, trapezoid shape and faces Central Park. The two towers rise from this base and are lined up with Broadway. Both towers are 55 stories tall. The building’s design includes special glass windows and a large cable structure at the entrance. There is also a glass structure on the southeast corner with colorful lights that show the time.

The lower part of the building includes shopping areas, a music space, and old office spaces. There is a big mall called the Shops at Columbus Circle with designer shops and restaurants. A music space called Frederick P. Rose Hall is also there, with different rooms for performances.

The upper floors have homes and a hotel. The hotel, called the Mandarin Oriental New York, is in the north tower and has many rooms and special features like a spa and a pool. The homes in both towers have high ceilings and big windows with great views.

History

Planning

After selling the New York Coliseum in 1985, many bids came in for its redevelopment. One plan by Mortimer Zuckerman for Salomon Brothers was rejected by the community, and negotiations ended in 1994. In 1996, planning restarted with several requirements from the city. By 1998, Time Warner joined with Related Companies to bid $345 million for the site. Their plan included hotel rooms, condos, a concert hall, and office space. The city approved this bid, and construction began after the Coliseum was demolished in 1999.

Competing plans

New York City and Boston Properties hired David Childs in 1987 to design a replacement for the Coliseum, called Columbus Center. His first plan, shared in June 1988, suggested tall twin towers made of brick and glass. However, this faced community opposition, leading to a redesign. A second proposal in April 1988 included lower towers connected by a walkway. This also met resistance and legal challenges. After delays, negotiations ended in 1994. Related Companies considered turning the site into a Kmart store but nothing happened. Planning restarted in May 1996.

Planning for Columbus Center restarted in May 1996, with the MTA setting rules for the new development. Nine proposals were submitted in November 1996. By May 1997, five finalists were chosen: Related Companies, Trump Organization, Tishman Speyer, Bruce C. Ratner & Daniel Brodsky, and Millennium Partners. In July 1997, New York state officials thought Millennium Partners might win, but Mayor Rudy Giuliani surprised everyone by saying he would take away a tax break and demand a large theater for Lincoln Center. This was new information, and Lincoln Center said they were interested.

In February 1998, the city and state agreed the new building would include a concert hall for Jazz at Lincoln Center, along with rehearsal rooms and educational spaces. This would cost between $40 million and $45 million, with Jazz at Lincoln Center raising $20 million and the city providing $18 million. Developers had to resubmit their bids. In April 1998, Time Warner joined with Related Companies, planning to move CNN and NY1 to the new building if their bid succeeded. Time Warner had joined the project after being convinced by Related Companies' leaders the year before. The joint bid cost $45 million less than Trump's offer, though government officials liked Millennium's and Related's twin-tower ideas better than Trump's single tower. By June 1998, city officials were mainly looking at Millennium's and Related's bids. Millennium suggested two luxury hotels and 450 condos, while the city supported Related because of Time Warner's involvement. By then, David Childs, who designed Related's plan, had made five different designs for the site.

Plan selection and finalization

The city chose Time Warner and Related's $345 million bid in late July 1998. Childs was hired again to design the building, which would have 425 hotel rooms, 375 condos, a concert hall for Jazz at Lincoln Center, and a 12-screen movie theater. There would also be a shopping area, office space for Time Warner, and studios for CNN and NY1. The plan called for two towers separated by an open space lined up with 59th Street. The towers would be 55 stories tall, made of glass, and placed around Columbus Circle, with their sides pointing toward Broadway's diagonal path. Apollo Global Management would help finance the project along with Related. The Palladium Company, owned by Himmel and Related, would manage the shopping space. The developers compared their idea to Rockefeller Center.

The MTA approved the plans quickly. Demolition of the Coliseum began in September 1999, starting with plaques from the old building. While tearing down the Coliseum, the Columbus Center project kept changing. As late as February 2000, when the inside of the Coliseum was gone, SOM, Related, and the city were still discussing details like how much stone to use on the outside. They also argued over how far apart the two towers should be, originally just 65 feet, and how much the Jazz at Lincoln Center space should stick back from Columbus Circle. By June 2000, when the outside of the Coliseum was torn down, the structural steel had already been ordered. Even Childs was frustrated with the delays, and the developers were ready to build based on the current plans, which nobody was happy with. Childs, with T. J. Gottesdiener and Mustafa K. Abadan, suggested a new design with glass-covered shapes, and officials approved this.

Childs shared his updated design at the end of June 2000. The building would now be called the AOL Time Warner Center, because of the merger between AOL and Time Warner. The building would cover about 2.5 million square feet, including space for systems. That same month, General Motors Acceptance Corporation (GMAC) agreed to give $1.3 billion to help build the building, the biggest construction loan ever for real estate in New York City at that time. GMAC's loan included $1.1 billion as a main loan and $200 million as extra funding. The rest of the $1.7 billion cost would come from money put in by Apollo, Related, AOL Time Warner, and the Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group. With decorations, the building would cost $2.2 billion. Time Warner had already paid $150 million to secure the right to use the space. City officers said Time Warner would get big tax cuts, but the New York City Department of Finance decided in 2001 the project didn't qualify for those cuts under the 1996 rules. More changes were made to the design, like reducing the hotel from 400 to 251 rooms to make space for offices.

Construction

2000 and 2001

A celebration to start building the structure happened on November 14, 2000. At that time, the project would employ 2,300 workers. Bovis Lend Lease was chosen as the main builder under a fixed-price agreement, and Insignia/ESG was selected to find tenants for AOL Time Warner Center. By early 2001, the first big store had rented space in the mall, and the builders were talking to restaurant owners for six eating places in the mall. In June 2001, Central Parking was chosen to manage the three-story parking garage under the building. The apartments went up for sale in August 2001. Ross planned to sell some of the higher-floor apartments for between $4,000 and $5,000 per square foot, which would make them the most expensive in New York City. The apartments ranged from $1.8 million for a two-bedroom to $35 million for a penthouse.

Plans for the 12-screen movie theater in Related's winning bid were dropped by 2001. By mid-2001, the building had grown to about 2.8 million square feet, causing concern from neighborhood groups who thought it was too big. One group, the Committee for Environmentally Sound Development, said AOL Time Warner Center was 33 percent bigger than allowed in an environmental study from 1997. Another group, City Councilwoman Ronnie Eldridge, wanted to know why building plans were filed as a change to the Coliseum instead of as a new building. The Committee for Environmentally Sound Development sued the project. In December 2001, a New York Supreme Court judge ruled against the group but said a government agency still needed to make sure AOL Time Warner Center didn't go over its size limit.

After the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center in Lower Manhattan later in 2001, work on AOL Time Warner Center slowed because many skilled workers left to help with the rescue at the World Trade Center site. Also, with many roads closed in Manhattan after the attacks, delivering concrete was delayed, raising worries that building would be slowed down. Even with these issues, the Time Warner complex reached 19 stories by the end of 2001. Even though some possible buyers pulled out, forty apartments were sold for a total of $200 million from September to December 2001. These included Sandie N. Tillotson, who bought the top floor of the north tower for $30 million shortly after the attacks, a record for a condominium at the time. Five stores also rented space in the months after the attacks. To deal with security worries, the builders made AOL Time Warner Center's entrances to garages and loading areas safer. They also made the steel stronger and added extra power for the elevators.

2002 and 2003

By early 2002, a thousand workers were building the main part of the structure. Several officers, including mayor Michael Bloomberg, signed a steel beam in February 2002 to celebrate finishing the steel frame of the lower floors. A speech honored workers who helped with the September 11 rescue. By then, sixty of the homes had been sold. The Related Companies kept the apartment prices the same, even though the attacks caused fewer people to buy homes citywide. By mid-2002, eighty percent of the store space was rented, and forty percent of the homes were sold. At the time, AOL Time Warner's stock value was falling, and the company planned to use some space, believing they couldn't fill it all. New York magazine compared AOL Time Warner Center to a marriage that was falling apart but still building a fancy new home together.

During building, Bovis Lend Lease got several notices for small building rule breaks from the New York City Department of Buildings. During a big windstorm in September 2002, a piece of building material flew off and hurt a carpenter and two passersby. The carpenter later died from his injuries, and a forklift driver also died on the eighth floor that year. In October 2002, California pension fund CalPERS and MacFarlane Partners offered to buy a half-share in the store space, the office space not used by AOL Time Warner, and the building's parking garage. The sale to CalPERS and MacFarlane closed in February 2003, with the partners getting a 49.5 percent share, worth about $500 million. That year, the Department of Finance valued AOL Time Warner Center at $820 million, up 275 percent from the year's value of $220 million. Building kept having problems; in April 2003, a fire damaged the fourth to seventh stories, including part of the future Jazz at Lincoln Center space. There were also thirty-nine open building rule breaks by late 2003, when about sixty percent of the apartments had been sold.

AOL Time Warner, facing more money troubles, had to cut costs at the new headquarters, including stopping plans for a technology lab. By September 2003, the company decided to change its name to Time Warner, and the building would be called simply "Time Warner Center". Even with Time Warner's problems, in the two years after the September 11 attacks, apartment prices at Time Warner Center went up five times. Architectural Digest asked twenty-three designers to decorate one room each on floor 73, then held a fundraiser in these rooms in October 2003. The rooms were decorated for free and left for six months to help sell the remaining 77 apartments. While most of the office space was for Time Warner, there was no interest in the extra office space. This made Apollo Real Estate and the Related Companies use half of the empty space, with Time Warner taking the rest for its subsidiary companies. Part of the problem was that the developers thought the offices worked best for media companies that might compete with Time Warner.

Time Warner use

Time Warner Center was the first big building built in Manhattan after the September 11 attacks, and its building pushed up land values nearby even before it was finished. AOL Time Warner wanted four companies to support the new building, one each from electronics, technology, cars, and financial services; these companies would have stores or displays in the building. The first supporter, electronics company Samsung, signed an agreement in mid-2003. Lincoln Motor Company was the car supporter, and First Republic Bank was the financial-services supporter. At the end of 2003, Credit Suisse First Boston gave $620 million to help pay part of the building loan.

Opening

The building opened in steps starting in 2003. The first part of Time Warner Center to open was the Mandarin Oriental New York, which opened on November 15, 2003, though a big celebration was held in December 2003. Time Warner Center's big opening party was on February 5, 2004, with a party for the Shops at Columbus Circle when they finished. At the time the mall opened, over four-fifths of the 40 stores and 10 restaurants were open. Some experts in the store business worried Time Warner Center's "vertical mall" idea wouldn't work because high-rise malls in New York City hadn't been successful before.

Final work was still happening when, in April 2004, a piece of metal fell off the outside of the building. This made Bloomberg stop all work on the building because this was the fourth time since 2002 that building material had fallen. The mall also had problems, like a fire in the Per Se restaurant, the first to open in the mall, in early 2004. Jazz at Lincoln Center opened in October 2004, almost a year after the rest of the building was done. All together, the project cost $1.8 billion.

Operation

The Sunshine Group was in charge of selling the building. Businessman David Martínez bought one top-floor apartment and part of another; at $40 to $45 million, this was the most expensive home recorded in Manhattan at the time. Other early residents included designer Lady Henrietta Spencer-Churchill and musician Ricky Martin, as well as architect Jon Stryker, who used Time Warner Center as a temporary home because he didn't want to rent. The south tower's residents also included Saudi royal Turki bin Faisal Al Saud, art collector Tobias Meyer, producer Verna Harrah, and businessmen Gregory Olsen and John Kluge. North tower residents included ten doctors; businessmen Alan B. Miller, Michael Spencer, and Gerard Cafesjian; and two daughters of Turkish businessman Sakıp Sabancı. By late 2004, the apartments were about 85 percent sold. About a quarter of the first buyers were from other countries, and a third of all buyers used shell companies to hide who they were.

Within a year and a half of Time Warner Center opening, the hotel and some of the mall's stores were doing well. However, several restaurant owners had already closed or were closing their places in the building. The property had the highest market value in New York City, $1.1 billion, in 2006. The building's last apartment was sold that March. By then, a monthly parking pass cost between $550 and $600, more than a one-bedroom apartment in many Southern and Midwestern U.S. cities. Time Warner Center became a popular place by 2008; it helped raise the value of nearby properties by up to 400 percent since 2004. Average apartment prices went up 127 percent since the building opened, with apartments listed between $7 and $60 million.

After the nearby 15 Central Park West finished in the late 2000s, apartment prices at Time Warner Center started to go down. One apartment listed in 2007 wasn't sold for over ten years. In 2013, Time Warner said it would move most of its offices to 30 Hudson Yards on the west side of Manhattan. The next January, Time Warner sold its share of the Columbus Circle building for $1.3 billion to the Related Companies, the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, and GIC Private Limited. The companies borrowed $675 million over five years from Deutsche Bank and Bank of China to buy the office space.

By the 2010s, the apartments in Time Warner Center were bought by many very rich people. In 2015, The New York Times reported that Time Warner Center's apartment owners included seventeen people on Forbes' The World's Billionaires list, five major art collectors, eight chief executives, and celebrities like singer Jimmy Buffett, football player Tom Brady, and talk show host Kelly Ripa. Most apartments, about eighty percent, were bought by shell companies by 2014, with some tenants linked to controversy. These included Vitaly Malkin, a Russian senator accused of connections to organized crime; Wang Wenliang, a Chinese businessman whose company faced accusations of unsafe building practices; and Anil Agarwal, an Indian businessman whose mining company was charged with pollution in India and Zambia. These controversies led the United States Department of the Treasury to start regulating big all-cash property sales in Manhattan in 2016.

Deutsche Bank use

In May 2018, Deutsche Bank said it would rent all 1.1 million square feet of office space for 25 years, moving from 60 Wall Street starting in the third quarter of 2021. This was a smaller space than the 1.6 million square feet the bank used at 60 Wall Street. After this news, Related Companies said the building would be officially renamed "Deutsche Bank Center" when the company moved in. In May 2019, Related got a $1.1 billion loan from Wells Fargo for the office part of the building. After saying it would cut back on overseas work in mid-2019, Deutsche Bank gave back two floors, covering 60,000 square feet, to Related Companies. Also, the CNN studios moved to Hudson Yards by late 2019.

Between March 2020 and April 2021, the Mandarin Oriental hotel in Time Warner Center was closed because of the COVID-19 pandemic in New York City, and it had some repairs during that time. Time Warner Center was renamed to Deutsche Bank Center in May 2021, with Time Warner signs changed to Deutsche Bank signs over one week. The bank planned to move 5,000 employees to the building, but the move was delayed. The bank's employees started moving in by July 2021.

Critical reception

When the design for the Deutsche Bank Center was first shown in 1998, some people liked the glass outside, but others thought it didn't mean much. By the end of that year, one writer said the building showed that people in New York weren't thinking about how the city had changed since the 1930s. Another editor called the plan "klutzy."

In 2000, the plan changed to something new and not like older buildings nearby. One critic liked how it looked like old Art Deco buildings, but didn't like some parts on top. Another thought it didn't feel strong or clear enough.

After the events of September 11, 2001, some people compared the building's tall towers to the World Trade Center, but the builders said that wasn't their intention. As the building neared completion, some said it was too big for the area.

Once finished, many critics liked the Deutsche Bank Center. One writer called it a "soaring, shining" building that showed off New York's strength. Others said it was a special part of the city's modern buildings, even if it was very large. In 2007, it was named one of the top 150 buildings in the United States.