A new mixed use development that will transform a 26 acre rail yards site on Manhattan’s Far West Side officially got underway yesterday with the ground breaking of what will be the project’s south tower. The 47-storey office building designed by Kohn Pedersen Fox will serve as the global headquarters of luxury goods manufacturer, Coach, Inc., which will be the tower’s anchor tenant.

The project, which will be one of the most ambitious in New York’s history, encompasses 13 million sq ft of development, including six million sq ft of commercial space. It will be a complicated endeavor with much of the development occurring atop platforms to be built over the Metropolitan Transit Authority’s (MTA’s) rail yards, which will remain in active use.