NYC's Iconic One Times Square To Get $500M Redevelopment: What You Need To Know

One of New York City’s most famous office buildings is getting a $500 million makeover and a new focus as a visitor center.

What Happened: According to combined media reports, the Atlanta-headquartered real estate investment and management firm Jamestown LP is redeveloping One Times Square, the 118-year-old building that is the center of attention every New Year’s Eve as the site of the iconic ball drop which rings in the coming year.

The redevelopment opens the property to the general public and includes a new museum highlighting the city’s history and a viewing deck to enable visitors to get a bird’s eye view of the Times Square area. The company also plans to incorporate advertising technology through 12 of the building’s 26 floors, with brands connecting with visitors through a series of immersive digital, virtual and augmented reality-based presentations.

The redevelopment will include a new public plaza on the building’s east side and improvements to the Times Square Shuttle subway station, with an ADA-accessible elevator being added. AECOM Tishman is the general contractor for the project and the company predicted the project will create 500 construction and manufacturing jobs, along with millions of dollars in new economic activity.

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Why It Happened: One Times Square was built in 1904 as the headquarters of the New York Times Co NYT. Since the 1920s, it has stood out in the area for the oversized billboard advertising covering much of the structure.

But despite its prominent location, the building itself has been mostly vacant since the 1970s, with revenue generated from its outdoor advertising; earlier plans for redevelopment never came to fruition. Jamestown, which acquired the building from Lehman Brothers in 1997, plans to lease half of the building after the redevelopment is completed, scheduled for the summer of 2024.

Photo: The LED advertisement for NASA Mars Perseverance Live covers the entire 26 floors of One Times Square, courtesy of NASA / Flickr Creative Commons