30 Hudson Street

30 Hudson Street, also known as Goldman Sachs Tower, is a 238 m (781 ft), 42-story building in Jersey City, New Jersey. It is the second tallest building in New Jersey. Completed in 2004, the tower was designed by César Pelli. It houses offices, a cafeteria, a health unit, and a full-service fitness facility including a physical therapy clinic. Provident Bank of New Jersey and Così outlets are also located on the ground level, and open to the general public.

The building is in the Exchange Place area close to a PATH station and is accessible by the Hudson-Bergen Light Rail at the Essex Street and Exchange Place stops.

The tower sits on the waterfront overlooking the Hudson River and Lower Manhattan and is visible from all five of the New York City boroughs. On a clear day, the building may be visible from as far away as Highlands, New Jersey 40 miles south and Bear Mountain, New York 40 miles north.

Originally intended to be a dedicated use building for Goldman Sachs' middle and back office units, lower than projected staffing levels at the bank following the global financial crisis forced Goldman to seek occupancy from other tenants to avoid forgone rental income. Royal Bank of Canada currently shares the space, with plans for other professional service firms to take occupancy as well in the near future.

History

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 building is certified under LEED-NC Version 2.0 of the U.S. Green Building Council.The building has been surrounded by pedestrian protective scaffolding since 2010.

The company completed construction of another tower in 2010 to house the bulk of their sales and trading departments. It is located at 200 West Street in Lower Manhattan just north of Brookfield Place (formerly the World Financial Center), almost directly across the water from 30 Hudson. Under their "Venice strategy", Goldman Sachs works in conjunction with NY Waterway to shuttle workers between the two buildings on private ferries.

The building was used in 2016 by the Bernie Sanders presidential campaign to symbolize Goldman Sachs and Hillary Clinton's ties to the company.

Text imported from Wikipedia article "30 Hudson Street" and modified on July 23, 2019 according to the CC-BY-SA 4.0 International license.