A rolling green roof atop an elegant all-glass facade, with both a white-table-cloth restaurant and a spot for a laid-back picnic on the grass 70 feet above the harbor, with a view of Manhattan through the center of a tremendous observation wheel.
That's the latest vision for the New York Wheel and it's terminal building, shown in updated renderings provided by Wheel CEO Rich Marin. "This design is not final-final but it's at least one final," Marin joked.
The design includes many modifications made as a result of consulting with different city agencies in pursuit of Uniformed Land Use Review Process certification, and of repeated meetings with the city's Design Commission.
"We've made a lot of changes to the design to meet their suggestions and hopefully we're down to the sort of the short strokes," Marin said.
While plenty of people have a pretty good idea of what the giant observation wheel will look like, the new renderings show a sleek glass terminal building that will allow people have a view from the harbor both inside and out, and the building is designed to flow as such.
"The stairway down is both indoors and outdoors -- it's on both sides," Marin said. "It's intended to be that way, it's intended to mimic the indoor outdoor success." On the outside, the steps run along a sloping, terraced hillside.
"People can actually walk over to the side and enjoy a seat on the beach, and it's almost sort of stadium-like seating," Marin said. "That becomes a very nice, contemplative place to sit and ponder the Memorial and the waterfront and our plaza."
Atop the terminal building will be the much-touted green roof, which will be fully accessible to the public as a lawn for walking, picnicking and watching over the harbor. Marin described the flow of the green roof as "ribbons," taking the same curve and shape as the wheel that will tower in front of it.
The front of the terminal building has a tremendous, sloping glass wall -- with some glass pleats that makes Marin liken the structure to a skirt. Those structural glass columns will be there instead of steel, keeping the space open.
"The reason you see that sloping glass wall in the front is because we want people, as they're coming down the stairs, as they're standing in the main area of the terminal, to be able to look up and see the wheel and look out and see the harbor all at once," Marin said.
If guests enter at the lower level, from Bank Street, they'll come into the "Great Wheel Hall," where there will be ticketing, coat rooms, and the wheel's large sustainability exhibition there.
The restaurant will include a terrace out onto the green roof -- which will also be accessible to anyone who would like to check out the view by walking up the sloping roof from Richmond Terrace. Those walking on the green roof can even pop in to the terrace for a drink.
Almost all of the building's green roof -- which extends toward Jersey Street, atop a parking lot hidden beneath it -- will be accessible to the public. The only off-limits area is where solar and wind turbines will be located. Glass railings will block off the steep edge above the harbor, Marin said.
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