Form and facade

The building is 36 stories tall.^[9] The base is quadrilateral in form and is clad with polished granite and silver-tinted glass.^[14] The windows are composed of double panes of thermal glass, set within aluminum frames.^[15] This gives way to several setbacks, eventually resulting in an octagonal, entirely glass curtain wall.^[9][14] The setbacks are placed above the 3rd, 25th, 29th, 33rd, 37th, and 38th floors.^[15]

To attain more interior area than would otherwise have been allowed, Ronson acquired 135,000 square feet (12,500 m²) of air rights from three neighboring buildings, two of which have since been demolished. These are the New York City Police Museum directly to the west; a demolished fire station on Old Slip between Front and Water Streets; and the demolished United States Assay Office at the address 32 Old Slip.^[9][16] In addition, the southern part of Front Street was removed from city street maps and was converted into a tax lot.^[16]

The base of 32 Old Slip contains a fire station on South Street, replacing an old firehouse on Old Slip.^[9][16] The firehouse is the headquarters of New York City Fire Department (FDNY) Engine Company 4 and Ladder Company 15.^[17] The current firehouse is four times the previous firehouse, which was demolished to make way for a plaza.^[16] At ground level, a privately owned arcade and urban plaza surround the building.^[18] There is a U-shaped arcade running along Gouverneur Lane, Front Street, and Old Slip, screened by a group of polished-granite columns. The arcade has skylights at all four corners and is nearly twice as large as the building's public plaza. The public plaza itself is on Gouverneur Lane and contains several polished-granite benches. HRO also funded the installation of a plaza in the median of Old Slip, which is owned by the city government.^[19]

Features

The foundations are made of steel pilings that support reinforced concrete-slab walls. The superstructure is made of steel, with concrete floor slabs that can carry live loads of 100 pounds per square foot (4.8 kPa).^[15] There are 26 passenger elevators leading from the lobby to the upper floors, which are grouped into four banks. Elevator banks A, B, C, and D respectively serve floors 2–9, 10–17, 18–24, and 25–36. There are also three hydro elevators (two from the lobby to the sub-cellar and one from the lobby to the cellar), as well as two freight elevators from the sub-cellar to floor 37.^[20] Two of the hydro elevators are garage elevators, while the third is a "messenger elevator".^[3] Five stairways are also located throughout the building, and there are two escalators between the lobby and the second floor.^[20] Beneath the structure is a parking garage with 104 parking spaces.^[3] In addition, there is a bike room, mail room, concierge, messenger center, and convention center.^[15]

There are column-free spaces on each floor and a 40 ft 0 in (12.19 m) lobby.^[14] The floor sizes range from 23,404 to 38,750 square feet (2,174.3 to 3,600.0 m²) of rentable space, totaling 1,161,435 square feet (107,900.8 m²).^[15] Generally, the building has a slab-to-slab height of 13.5 feet (4.1 m) as measured between the floor and ceiling.^[21] The building could provide at least 12.5 watts per square foot (0.180 hp/m²) of electricity to each story. Most of the office stories have ceilings of 8.5 feet (2.6 m). There are eight "special use" stories, which have 12-foot (3.7 m) ceilings and can provide up to 75 watts per square foot (1.08 hp/m²) of electricity.^[16] These stories could accommodate raised floors for financial firms, insurance companies, or other firms that used large amounts of power for computers.^[22]

Floors 3 and 37 contain the building's primary mechanical rooms, ventilation units, and electrical equipment.^[23] Each story also has mechanical equipment rooms with air-conditioning units and air-filtration equipment. Heat from the New York City steam system is provided to four steam converters on floors 3 and 37. The roof has five water cooling units as well as cooling towers.^[15] In case of an emergency, there are four electrical generators for tenants and two generators for the building's mechanical systems. The roof has a 15,080-U.S.-gallon (57,100 L) water tank, and the cellar has an automatic fire pump and a manual fire pump that can draw water from the New York City water supply system. There are two water pumps for the building's domestic water service: one each in the cellar and on floor 3. Two 6-inch-wide (15 cm) pipes (a sewage pipe and a storm drain) connect with the New York City sewer system.^[20]

20th century

In 1983, the United States Mint put the 42,176 square feet (3,918.3 m²) Assay Office up for auction. Beginning at US$3 million, the winning bid was made by Howard Ronson's HRO International Ltd., which offered $27 million. The sale established it as the most valuable government estate sold at public auction.^[8] The Assay Office building was demolished in 1986.^[24] The next year, HRO built a 36-story building called One Financial Square on the site of the Assay Office.^[2][1] At the time, Financial Square was the largest project that HRO had developed in New York City.^[16] During excavations for the site, contractors found several cannons from late-17th and early-18th century British vessels, which were given to the South Street Seaport Museum.^[25]

One of the earliest tenants was Thomson McKinnon Securities, which leased 560,000 square feet (52,000 m²) in the building in December 1985.^[26] There was high demand for office space in the Financial District at the time, and One Financial Square was one of eight new office buildings in the area with available space.^[27][28] However, demand for office space in New York City declined after Black Monday in 1987, and tenants such as Thomson McKinnon Securities looked to sublease their space.^[29] The building was half-empty by 1993.^[30] The now-defunct Japanese bank Sanwa had given a mortgage loan of $340 million^[31] or $350 million for the building.^[32] Ronson defaulted on the mortgage in 1995.^[31][32]

The Paramount Group purchased the property for $135 million in 1995,^[33][34] financing the purchase with a $96 million loan from Sanwa.^[35] According to a Paramount executive, the firm had finalized the purchase less than 45 days after it had learned that the building was on sale.^[34] To attract tenants, Paramount hosted a party for which it sent out toy helicopters along with its invitations.^[36] The Royal Bank of Canada leased space in the building until 1997.^[37]

21st century

Paramount signed American International Group to a 10-year, 260,000 square feet (24,000 m²) lease in 2006, which was one of the largest leases in Manhattan that year. AIG occupied seven floors of the building next door to their headquarters at 180 Maiden Lane.^[35] In August 2007, Paramount sold the building to Beacon Capital Partners for $751 million,^[1][24] which at the time was one of the largest sales on record of an office building in Lower Manhattan.^[38] That October, Beacon secured a $500 million loan from MetLife to fund the acquisition. At the time, it was 90 percent occupied, with tenants including AIG, BNY Mellon, Daiwa, Goldman Sachs, HIP, and the General Services Administration.^[39]

Like many buildings in Lower Manhattan, 32 Old Slip was battered with storm waters during Hurricane Sandy in 2012. In contrast to most in the region, the building was designed to resist a powerful earthquake, which in part made the structure less prone to flooding.^[40] Within a year the building's market value had declined by $65.7 million.^[41] In 2013 a renovation effort began to add improved flood barriers, pumps and piping systems to better ward against future storms.^[3] In January 2013, construction firm Hunter Roberts leased 37,000 square feet (3,400 m²) on the 10th floor,^[42][43] and the United States Census Bureau leased 40,000 square feet (3,700 m²) on the 8th and 9th floors.^[44][45] In addition, Convene leased 36,000 square feet (3,300 m²) for a corporate center on the second floor, which opened in April 2013. Convene's space had formerly contained a training center for Goldman Sachs, which had vacated 32 Old Slip in 2009, after Goldman's headquarters at 200 West Street opened.^[46] BNY also moved out of the building during 2013.^[47]

RXR Realty agreed to purchase the building from Beacon Capital Partners in December 2014 for $675 million,^[35] finalizing its purchase the following April.^[48][49] RXR financed the purchase with a $325 million loan from GE Capital.^[49][50] Immediately after buying the building, RXR sold the fee interest in the underlying land to Melohn Properties for $197.5 million.^[48][51] Shortly after RXR's purchase, health care advertising firm Cement Bloc leased 55,000 square feet (5,100 m²) on the 15th and 16th floors of the building.^[52] The American Arbitration Association subleased 47,000 square feet (4,400 m²) on the 33rd and 36th floors in September 2017 from insurance company Axa XL.^[53] In October 2018, law firm Cahill Gordon & Reindel leased 201,621 square feet (18,731.2 m²), moving their headquarters from nearby 80 Pine Street.^[54][55] The same month, commercial insurance brokerage Alliant Insurance Services leased 55,938 square feet (5,196.8 m²) and creative agency Decoded Advertising leased 15,518 square feet (1,441.7 m²) in the building.^[56] In 2019, Mesa West loaned $404 million to RXR for a refinancing of 32 Old Slip.^[57][58]

Buying insurance startup Policygenius leased the 30th, 31st, and partial 5th floors in May 2020,^[59] and visual effects company FuseFX leased part of the 17th floor that July.^[60][61] Melohn sold the land to iStar in July 2021 for $90.5 million,^[62] and the Carlyle Group acquired iStar's net-lease portfolio in early 2022, including the land under 32 Old Slip.^[63][64]