Amazon Oversaw Hazardous Clean-Up During Lord & Taylor Renovation, Docs Show
The clean-up of dangerous chlorine compounds occurred underneath one of the tech giant’s now-premier Manhattan office spaces, which opened on Fifth Ave. in 2023. A NYC agency has now issued an after-action report summarizing the seemingly overlooked, and apparently successful, process.
| 25 Feb 2026 | 02:00
The former Lord and Taylor Building (left) has been used by Amazon as a major office space since 2023. During their renovation of the space, Amazon cleaned up toxic chlorine compounds from soil on the lot. (
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A public food hall is slated to open at the building in the coming months. (
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The tech giant Amazon quietly oversaw the clean-up of hazardous environmental compounds during their transformation of 424-434 5th Ave., otherwise known as the Lord & Taylor Building, into one of their major NYC office outposts back in 2023.
While some locals may be aware that Amazon’s transformation of the building has come with big-ticket perks such as a new food hall that is slated to open in the coming months, for example, the remediation of toxic “sub-slab soil vapor contaminants” at the site appears to have been relatively (if not entirely) unremarked upon.
While the clean-up was officially completed by November 2023, a brand-new release by the NYC Office of Environmental Remediation has just formally concluded that “the cleanup requirements established under the City Voluntary Clean-up Program (VCP) to address contamination of 438 5th Ave. (Block 840 and Part of Lot 42) in Manhattan, New York have been met.”
The 11-story Lord & Taylor Building is formally addressed between 424-434 5th Ave., which is technically right next door to 436-438 5th Ave., a seven-story building otherwise known as the Dreicer Building; they both occupy the same lot and adjoin each other.
The taller building was home to the storied Lord & Taylor department store for over 100 years, between 1914 and 2019.
Amazon then bought the Lord & Taylor Building and the Dreicer Building in 2020, for $1 billion. They opened both buildings as a now-connected office space known as “Hank” in fall 2023 (named after a unit of textile measurement), around when the remedial work at the former Dreicer Building was considered completed.
A 2022 remedial action report, which was prepared for “Amazon.com LLC,” notes that the Dreicer Building was “formerly used as retail and office space with [a] dry-cleaner.” The dry cleaning business at the building, Schwarz & Forger Cleaners and Dyers, operated between 1920 and 1934.
In the report, investigators noted that “data collected...at the Site is sufficient to delineate the distribution of contaminants (VOCs) in sub-slab soil vapor at the Site.” Specifically, the report adds, “elevated concentrations of CVOCs, specifically tetrachloroethene (PCE) and trichloroethene (TCE) were detected in samples collected beneath the Site.”
CVOCs, volatile organic compounds that contain chlorine, are the most toxic VOCs and have the ability to cause cancer. Their detection at 438 5th Ave., investigators noted, “indicate mitigation is recommended in accordance” with state rules.
According to the new February 2026 Office of Environmental Remediation, this clean-up was ultimately successful.
For one, it involved a “Community Air Monitoring Program for particulates and volatile organic carbon compounds,” as well as the construction of a “cover system consisting of a six-inch thick concrete building slab...to prevent human exposure to residual soil/fill remaining under the site.”
Perhaps most intriguingly, the clean-up involved something known as an “active sub-slab depressurization system,” or SSDS. SSDS essentially creates a suction system that prevents dangerous gases, namely those detected beneath a building’s foundation (such as CVOCs), from entering the interior of a building.
SSDS is commonly used to reduce the presence of radon, a radioactive gas caused by the decay of uranium, in indoor air; fortunately, it doesn’t appear that radon was detected at 438 5th Ave., and the dangerous gas is only mentioned in the “references” section of the 2022 report.
As for whether anybody can expect to face any future health scares from CVOCs via working at 438 5th Ave., the Office of Environmental Remediation notes that a “deed restriction” was “recorded” to “prevent future exposure to any residual contamination at the site, and to inform future owners of the residual historic fill at the site.”
In other words, this means that any demands for containing residual CVOCs are now written into the deed for the building and would apply to anybody that could theoretically purchase the building from the tech giant.
Amazon did not respond to a request for comment as of press time.