The New York Stock Exchange may move to a site where a historic building faces demolition – and the New York Landmarks Conservancy is not standing in the way.
"As preservationists," Roger Lang, a spokesman for the group told Traders Magazine, "we regret the loss of a very fine old building by Francis Hatch Kimball is part of the price the public must pay for this project."
The NYSE's proposed new headquarters at 37 Wall Street, would include two 50,000 square-foot-trading floors, as well as a 900-foot-tall steel-and-glass office tower with 1.2 million square feet of space for other tenants. A Big Board official stressed that the plan is tentative.
The new digs, which would give the Big Board more modern amenities, could be ready by 2006, at an estimated price tag of $727 million, according to published reports.
The location currently houses a 25-story beaux-arts-style building constructed for the Trust Co. of America in 1907. The building has been condemned by the New York City Economic Development agency and is slated for demolition next year.
Although 37 Wall has been designated by preservationists as eligible for listing on the national and New York register of historic places, the structure has not been assigned this status.
The Conservancy, Lang said, "has never before accepted the razing of a National Register eligible building without protest. We do so in this instance because we believe it is the broader public interest to retain the exchange on Wall Street in lower Manhattan."
