St. John's Terminal

rdf:langString St. John's Terminal

rdf:langString St. John's Terminal, also known as 550 Washington Street, is a building on Washington Street in the Hudson Square neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City. Designed by Edward A. Doughtery, it was built in 1934 by the New York Central Railroad as a terminus of the High Line, an elevated freight line along Manhattan's West Side used for transporting manufacturing-related goods. The terminal could accommodate 227 train cars. The three floors, measuring 205,000 square feet (19,000 m2) each, were the largest in New York City at the time of their construction. The building was used as a freight terminal until 1960, when the freight line was decommissioned. Afterward, the building was acquired by Eugene M. Grant and Lionel Bauman, who turned the structure into a warehouse and office building. The space was used by tenants such as banks Merrill Lynch & Co. and Manufacturers Hanover Corporation, the latter of which constructed a fourth story in 1966. The terminal was largely used by Merrill Lynch by the early 1990s. Afterward, St. John's Terminal was used for corporate real estate and offices. Eugene Grant sold the building's majority ownership in 2013 to a joint venture of , Fortress Investment Group, and . The developers initially planned a mixed-use development on the site, with residences, retail, and offices, using air rights purchased from the adjoining Pier 40. Though the plans were modified in response to community input, the plans stalled in 2017, and Oxford Properties and Canada Pension Plan bought the southern three-quarters of the site in early 2018. Oxford and CPP hired Cookfox to design an office redevelopment with nine additional stories above the original three floors. The building was purchased in 2021 by Google, which plans to occupy the building as part of a Hudson Square campus. As of 2021, the redevelopment is scheduled to be completed in 2023.