Deutsche Bank Center

formerly Time Warner Center

Among New York City’s most significant projects at the turn of the 21st century, this large-scale, mixed-use building revitalized Columbus Circle by engaging the streetscape and embodying the concept of a city within a building.

Project Facts
  • Completion Year 2004
  • Design Finish Year 2000
  • Size Site Area: 13,875 square meters Building Height: 229 meters Number of Stories: 53 Building Gross Area: 260,129 square meters
  • Rental Units 201
  • Rooms 248
  • Collaborators
    Brennan Beer Gorman Monk/Interiors Cantor Seinuk Group Cline Bettridge Bernstein Lighting Design, Inc. Entek Engineering, LLC Hirsch Bedner Associates Jerome S. Gillman Associates Langan Engineering & Environmental Services, Inc. LERA Vollmer Associates Philip Habib & Associates James Carpenter Design Associates, Inc. Jenkins & Huntington, Inc. Pentagram Ishmael Leyva Architects Radii, Inc. Ken Smith Landscape Design Ducibella Venter & Santore (DVS) Hlw International Elkus Manfredi Architects, Ltd. Perkins&Will - New York Mancini Duffy Kostow Greenwood Architects Pc Rafael Vinoly Architects Thad Hayes Jaffe Holden Acoustics Mathews Nielsen R.J. Van Seters Company Lovett Silverman Saleh & Dirani Architectural Modeling The Y Group William Wunder Cerami & Associates Cosentini Associates Related Companies
Project Facts
  • Completion Year 2004
  • Design Finish Year 2000
  • Size Site Area: 13,875 square meters Building Height: 229 meters Number of Stories: 53 Building Gross Area: 260,129 square meters
  • Rental Units 201
  • Rooms 248
  • Collaborators
    Brennan Beer Gorman Monk/Interiors Cantor Seinuk Group Cline Bettridge Bernstein Lighting Design, Inc. Entek Engineering, LLC Hirsch Bedner Associates Jerome S. Gillman Associates Langan Engineering & Environmental Services, Inc. LERA Vollmer Associates Philip Habib & Associates James Carpenter Design Associates, Inc. Jenkins & Huntington, Inc. Pentagram Ishmael Leyva Architects Radii, Inc. Ken Smith Landscape Design Ducibella Venter & Santore (DVS) Hlw International Elkus Manfredi Architects, Ltd. Perkins&Will - New York Mancini Duffy Kostow Greenwood Architects Pc Rafael Vinoly Architects Thad Hayes Jaffe Holden Acoustics Mathews Nielsen R.J. Van Seters Company Lovett Silverman Saleh & Dirani Architectural Modeling The Y Group William Wunder Cerami & Associates Cosentini Associates Related Companies

Fitting a city within a building

Deutsche Bank Center, originally known as Time Warner Center, brings an array of urban amenities into a single building at a prominent corner of Central Park. It encompasses five levels of retail and restaurants, a performing arts center, condominiums, a hotel, and offices, along with direct access to subway service and underground parking. For more than a decade, the building housed CNN’s New York television studios. Its health club was among the largest ever built at the time, and its lower level became New York City’s first Whole Foods.

© James Ewing
© Jeff Goldberg | Esto

To knit this diverse array of functions together, the design is composed of several distinct forms that moderate the building’s scale while alluding to the landmark residential towers of the Upper West Side.

Built to replace the New York Coliseum—a windowless convention hall that quickly became outdated—the building’s form deftly responds to its urban context. A stone-and-glass base, following the curve of Columbus Circle, is topped with two trapezoidal towers. The base houses the retail and production studio components, while the towers contain offices, the hotel, and residences. Culminating in luminous glass and steel crowns, the twin-towered design echoes the historic apartment buildings which line Central Park West.

© James Ewing
Time Warner Center
© James Ewing

Situating the building within the city

Columbus Circle marks a singular moment in the Manhattan street grid, as the place where the diagonal of Broadway meets the corner of Central Park. SOM’s design enhances each one of these defining urbanistic features. The street grid extends visually into Deutsche Bank Center’s street-level arcade of shops, with a large cable net wall that is perfectly aligned with 59th Street. This glass facade rises to the Jazz at Lincoln Center performance venues above, offering theatergoers dramatic views above the street. Higher up, the gap between the towers opens sightlines down 59th Street.

© David Sundberg | Esto

The base of the building echoes the curve of Columbus Circle, positioning the Deutsche Bank Center to face the entrance to Central Park. Moving up the building, the curvature is resolved into angular forms at the tower level. The front of each tower aligns with Broadway, which passes from the southeast side of the circle to the northwest.


A pivotal project’s enduring legacy

By responding to the complexity of the surrounding streets and the huge number of programs within one structure, SOM’s design for Deutsche Bank Center solves multiple challenges. It untangles a web of infrastructure underground, creating a better connection to New York’s subway system and three levels of subterranean parking. By providing more than 300,000 square feet of shops along with Jazz at Lincoln Center, offices, a hotel, and residences, the building transformed a dead zone into a destination—proving for New York that a large-scale, mixed-use building could be greater than the sum of its parts and inspiring future developments throughout the city.


Repositioning: From Time Warner to Deutsche Bank

About a decade and a half after the Time Warner Center opened its doors, Deutsche Bank moved its New York headquarters to Columbus Circle. Deutsche Bank and Related Companies, the owner of the complex, tasked SOM with renovating 1.1 million square feet, from the office lobbies and elevators to the repositioning of several office floors. The result is a significant transformation of this workplace—with new outdoor terraces, a vastly improved arrival experience, and modern technology that is enhancing the building’s functionality and performance.

Repositioning an icon

When Deutsche Bank acquired the Time Warner Center, it brought on SOM to reposition the building. Our team redesigned the building’s office lobbies, repositioned several office floors, and upgraded its infrastructure, outdoor space, and environmental performance.

Deutsche Bank Center north lobby. Dave Burk © SOM

A welcoming arrival experience

The improvements to the Deutsche Bank Center begin on the outside, where the entrances to the offices have been structurally reinforced with blast protection and higher performing glass.

Deutsche Bank Center south lobby. Dave Burk © SOM

Inside both lobbies—one exclusively for the bank, and the other shared with office tenants—our interior design team created spaces reminiscent of a residence or gallery, with natural materials and artwork that contrast with the dark granite and glass of the exterior. Media displays enhance the private lobby to the south, while the northern lobby features an art exhibition program. Indirect lighting creates a serene environment in both lobbies, illuminating the travertine floors and walls as well as the oak paneling cladding the elevator bays.

Deutsche Bank Center south lobby. Dave Burk © SOM

Creating new outdoor spaces

In the initial design of the Time Warner Center, SOM envisioned the setbacks as outdoor terraces offering sweeping views of Columbus Circle, Central Park, and Midtown. The renovation completes this original vision. The main terrace, situated on the ninth level with the primary trading floor, provides 20,000 square feet of new outdoor space. Two smaller terraces, both on the 11th level, provide additional communal space, with one providing views down 8th Avenue and the other situated directly above Jazz at Lincoln Center. The latter, dubbed the “Canyon Terrace,” maximizes the space between the building’s twin towers.

Upgrading infrastructure

To accommodate Deutsche Bank’s new offices, SOM repositioned a major portion of the base building—raising the ceiling height and adding generators to support its technology-heavy workplace. New elevators and destination dispatch have improved the speed and safety of vertical transportation, and mechanical systems on the building’s setbacks were replaced with modern, more efficient equipment. Clearing these setbacks created space for outdoor terraces, and the original facades on these parts of the building were retrofitted with doors of highly transparent glass.

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