Oxford, Related Virtually Open Hudson Yards

They turned a virtual city within a city into a virtual reality.

The Related Companies and Oxford Properties are giving attendees of the International Council of Shopping Centers‘ New York National Dealmaking Conference the opportunity to visit their 17-million-square-foot Hudson Yards complex years before it opens through a 17-foot tall model and 3-D experience by Floored in the lobby of the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center.

The companies anticipate 24 million annual visitors to the site once the massive 28-acre development rising from Manhattan’s Far West Side is complete in 2018. But, until they finish aspects of project like the 1-million-square-foot, the 14 acres of public open space and the 5,000 residential units slated for the complex, the immersive 3-D experience offers the best chance yet to experience the companies’ eye-popping vision.



“There’s really no retailer today that’s been pitched Hudson Yards for the first time,” said Webber Hudson, an executive vice president with Related Urban. “The purpose of the model today is to advance people’s understanding of its scale beyond an 8.5 x 11 inch piece of paper.”

Oxford and Related’s plastic scale model stood in front of a massive projector screen that set the model in New York City’s skyline. Floored staffers helped patrons walk into the future Hudson Yards by presenting them with a pair of glasses with “Oculus Rift” technology that allows the user to tour the new shopping center while looking up and down at the future skyscrapers.



While the three-floor, 250,000-square-foot Neiman Marcus store will anchor the Shops, over 100 other retailers will also lease space at the vast complex, Related and Oxford officials say. But the display, which the companies introduced in an initial version at the Las Vegas ICSC conference and enhanced for this week’s dealmaking summit, provides an unprecedented peak into the development years ahead of its opening.

More about shopping malls in the USA