Park Ave to get first new tower in decades

New York

SOME time next week, a metal frame will go up around the blocky brick tower at Manhattan's 425 Park Ave, designed to protect pedestrians from falling objects. It's a prelude to the building's demise.

In about three years, if all goes according to plan, the site will have a new Norman Foster-designed skyscraper more than twice the height of the existing one. The replacement would be the first new office building in almost four decades on what the developer, David Levinson, called New York's "grand boulevard of commerce".

The 272-metre tower will rise amid Manhattan's biggest rush of skyscraper construction since the 1980s, with millions of square feet of offices in such projects as Hudson Yards on the far west side and the World Trade Center downtown. Mr Levinson is building "on spec", meaning without any tenants signed up. It's a gamble on the staying power of today's…