30 Hudson Street - History

History

The tower was designed by Cesar Pelli, who also designed the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur, One Canada Square in London and the Key Tower in Cleveland. The World Financial Center located just across the Hudson river was also designed by him. The tower, except for the black roof, resembles 1IFC, and to a lesser extent, 2IFC, two buildings of the IFC complex he designed in Hong Kong.

Completed in 2004, 30 Hudson Street is ranked 54th on the list of tallest buildings in the United States. It houses offices, a cafeteria, a health unit, and a full-service fitness facility including a physical therapy clinic. The property is managed by Grubb & Ellis Property Management. Provident Bank of New Jersey and Così (restaurant) are also located on the ground level, and open to the general public. The building is accessible by the Hudson-Bergen Light Rail at the Essex Street and Exchange Place stops.

The Goldman Sachs Tower is in Jersey City's Exchange Place area close to a PATH station about 200 yd (180 m) north and sits on the waterfront overlooking the Hudson River and Lower Manhattan. The tower is visible from the New York City boroughs of Brooklyn, Manhattan and Staten Island. On a clear day, the building may be visible from as far away as Atlantic Highlands, New Jersey.

Originally the tower was meant to be the centerpiece of an entire Goldman Sachs campus at Exchange Place, which was to include a training center, a university, and a large hotel complex. Many of the company's Manhattan-based equity traders refused to move away from Wall Street, delaying the occupation of the building's top 13 floors, which remained vacant until early 2008.

Once a derelict and mostly industrial part of Jersey City, the Exchange Place area forms part of New Jersey's Gold Coast, a revitalized strip of land along the formerly industrial west bank of the Hudson. Economic development in the 2000s spurred large-scale residential, commercial, and office development along the waterfront.

Although the location was largely rejected by the company's financial executives, 4,000 Goldman Sachs employees made the move to the building, including much of the company's real estate, technology, operations, and administrative departments. The company completed construction of another tower in 2010 at 200 West St. to house the bulk of their sales and trading departments just north of the World Financial Center, directly across the water from 30 Hudson in Lower Manhattan. The company plans to shuttle workers between the two buildings on private ferries when necessary, calling this their "Venice strategy".

The building is certified under LEED-NC Version 2.0 of the U.S. Green Building Council.