The podcast by project managers for project managers. Situated at the most heavily trafficked public space in the world, Times Square in New York is undergoing an extraordinary renovation and expansion project.  Hear how the iconic Palace Theatre was raised 30 feet to make room for commercial space below. The goal of this complex project was to preserve the historic theater box, which was built in 1913, and raise it to its new home on the third floor of TSX Broadway.

Table of Contents

02:16 … Intro to the Project03:12 … Raising a Theater04:42 … The TSX Broadway Project06:56 … Seeing the Vision08:34 … Major Stakeholders10:24 … Retained Slab Project11:47 … Effective Collaboration14:26 … The Hydraulic Lifting18:58 … Project Timeline20:27 … Kevin and Kyle22:00 … Monitoring the Lift24:53 … A Coordinated Effort25:38 … Lessons Learned27:40 … Advice for Project Managers29:08 … Find out More30:39 … Closing

ROBERT ISRAEL: But I think the most important thing that I have been successful at is planning.  If you’re a good project manager, you know how to plan.  And if you can think three steps ahead of where you need to be, you’re going to be a successful project manager. 

WENDY GROUNDS:  Hello, and welcome to Manage This, the podcast by project managers for project managers.  Thank you for joining us.  I am Wendy Grounds, and in the studio with me is Bill Yates.  If you like what you hear, we’d love to hear from you.  You can leave us a comment on our website, Velociteach.com; on social media; or whichever podcast listening app you use.  If you have any questions about our podcasts or about project management certifications, we’d love to hear from you.

Our guest today is Robert Israel.  He’s an executive vice president at L&L Holding Company.  Robert leads and directs all aspects of the TSX Broadway project development’s design and construction.  Previously, Robert was the cofounder of Solid Development Group.  He has also served as a project director for RFR Holding, and he has served in various management roles at CBRE.  But it’s his project that we are most excited to hear about.  And I’m going to let Bill tell you more about that.

BILL YATES:  Oh, man.  We are so excited about this.  We are delighted to have Robert as our guest because he has been instrumental in this $2.5 billion TSX Broadway project.  And the piece that we want to focus on is the raising of the Palace Theatre.  So we’ll talk about all aspects of it, but especially this historic theater, it’s a 1,700-seat theater that was opened in 1913, and it was on the ground floor.  Well, Wendy, it’s not on the ground floor anymore.  This thing has been raised 30 feet.  We’re going to talk about how you do that in a very busy Times Square with a historic building and all of the complexity that went into that.  Robert was right in the middle of it.  He’s got some amazing tips and tricks and advice that he’ll share.

WENDY GROUNDS:  And also it’s not just the raising of the theater, which is the main thing we talk about; but it’s all the other components that are going into this building in New York.  Hi, Robert.  Welcome to Manage This.  Thank you so much for talking with us today.

ROBERT ISRAEL:  Thanks for having me.  Appreciate you guys inviting me on.

Intro to the Project

WENDY GROUNDS:  Yeah, we’re looking forward to hearing more about this project.  Just as an introduction, can you tell us a little bit about L&L Holding and how long you’ve been working for the company?

ROBERT ISRAEL:  Sure.  I’ve been working at L&L Holding for just over five years.  I came onboard with L&L in 2017, just as we were sort of awarded the project, TSX Broadway.  And we spent two years in preconstruction, essentially, and started construction with TSX on the beginning of 2019.  But L&L overall, we own approximately 8 million square feet in New York City, mostly office/retail.  This is our first foray into the hospitality world, really.  And, you know, it has been an exciting addition to our portfolio.

But yes, L&L’s been in business over 20 years.  It was founded by Rob Lapidus and David Levinson.  Great place to work, great culture, and we manage like a family.

Raising a Theater

BILL YATES:  So you joined the company, and they toss you this small little, you know, side project; right?  This is the first one you’re working on with L&L.  That’s huge.

ROBERT ISRAEL:  Yeah, before I was actually hired, I met with David Levinson and Rob Lapidus several different times and a couple other folks from the company.  And they actually sent me a set of these plans.  It wasn’t called TSX back then.  It was called 1568 Broadway.  And they wanted me to review the plans and come up with some questions and comments relating to the plans when I was interviewing with them.  I wouldn’t call it a test, but they probably would.

And, you know, so I got this set of drawings which was quite large, and I reviewed them, and I had to actually look at the plans multiple times to make sure that I was actually looking at them and reading them and understanding them and interpreting correctly.  It showed us actually lifting the theater.  I wrote it down several times on my notepad, “lifting theater.”  I said, no, it must be a mistake.  No way.  And, you know, sure enough, I went into a couple of different meetings with them, and we were actually going to lift a 1,700-seat theater that’s landmarked from an interior perspective, 30 feet from its original elevation.  And we’ve actually done it as of today.  We actually completed it.

So yes, it was quite the daunting aspect.  And the amount of complexity associated with this project from start to finish, even as of today, everything we do is complex.  So yes, it was a very small project they asked me to start with.

BILL YATES:  That’s great.

The TSX Broadway Project

WENDY GROUNDS:  Can you give us just a little background as to what the whole vision for this TSX Broadway project is?  Part of it was lifting the theater, but there’s a whole lot else that’s involved.

ROBERT ISRAEL:  Sure.  I mean, look.  We live in New York City; right?  And obviously real estate is quite expensive.  But who in their right mind would first of all be able to stand out front of what was originally a 47-story building that was owned and operated by a real estate manager, that had a hotel component in it, had a retail component in it, had a theater in it?  And stand there and say, all right, we’re going to pay $1.1 billion for an asset, which included also signage assets, and we’re going to knock this asset down that was less than 30 years old, okay, and then rebuild.

Number one, it’s going to take hundreds of millions of dollars to rebuild and knock down, and then ultimately have a mixed-use development in New York City and own and operate it.  There’s not a lot of mixed-use developments in New York City.  They’re usually office, they’re usually condo, they’re usually multifamily.  There’s not a lot of comingling of uses in New York City.

And this project is a mixed-use development.  It has hotel, hospitality.  It has theater.  And it has retail.  So there’s a huge set of complex circumstances in order to just understand and manage and design that so it all works together so that everybody can get in and out of the building safely, and all of the three uses can comingle and operate in a single property and do what they’re each meant to do.

Theater can do performances.  Hotel can sell rooms to guests.  And this retail is unique because it’s not only just regular retail space, but also we’ve designed into the property a stage space with an opening in our LED signage, which by the way is one of the largest signs in the world, in Times Square, which has a 30x30-foot opening in it that, if you’re standing out front, you’re looking at a sign, you don’t know that there’s an actual door there.  And it will then open to a stage space where performers will be able to either be performing indoors, or then as the doors open can be performing outdoors to the Duffy Square/Times Square world.  So a unique part of the property is our stage.

Seeing the Vision

BILL YATES:  That is fantastic.  Because this is the historic Palace Theatre – it opened in 1913 – and you raised this thing 30 feet.  And then through this, one of the things that surprised me was you opened up 100,000 square feet of retail space as a part of this project.  The complexity of it is just mind-blowing.  The vision of seeing, okay, we have this incredibly lucrative space for retail, if we could just get to it.  How can we get to it?  Let’s raise the theater.  As you were looking at the blueprints, meeting with the owners, you must have been thinking, okay, there’s a bit of insanity here.   How are we going to pull this off technically?

ROBERT ISRAEL:  Well, yeah.  And just to show you how positive we thought the project was going to be, opening up that retail space by lifting the theater was the only way we could do the this project.  The financial implications of getting that space and making it available to us as a developer, it made the project.  Yeah, the hotel’s a hotel, it’s 600 rooms, it’s going to do what it’s going to do.  The theater we don’t own.  We’ve bought the right to condo it and then lift it.  It’s still owned by the Nederlander family.

So the retail space makes this project, 100%.  Retail in Times Square is a unique set of circumstances.  Again, if you look at our corner of 47th Street and Seventh Avenue corner, pre-pandemic, pre-COVID, there were over 400,000 people passing by that corner a day.  We’re almost back to that now, post-COVID.  We’re probably somewhere between 80 and 90% of that right now.  But if you walk out in Times Square, you’ll see it.  You’ll feel it.  It’s back.  Tourists are back to New York City.  And again,