NEW YORK _ Stephen Ross's yacht-length SUV with the blacked-out tinted windows pulls up to the Equinox Hotel in midtown Manhattan and the driver rushes to open the passenger door while a doormen unfurls an umbrella to cover the arrival from the morning's soft drizzle.
There's a rush of activity now. Tall men with earpieces that were nowhere to be seen a moment ago are suddenly in the vicinity. There's a lot of glad handing. It's as if royalty has arrived at this new metropolis on New York's west side called Hudson Yards.
Ross built this place _ all 18 million square feet. It's his vision.
He audaciously covered acres of the unsightly Long Island Railroad yard with a $1 billion platform _ as the trains were running _ and then constructed a sprawling, towering neighborhood atop that platform. And now these towers dwarf the downtown area of most U.S. cities by comparison.
"The business district here," Ross notes, "would probably be the equivalent to the fifth largest city in the United States."
Ross is treated like a celebrity here. Within five minutes of his arrival, a hotel guest asks to get a photo with him. But the Ross name is nowhere to be found on the project. It's not on any building. Not on any literature.
"Why?" Ross says, repeating a visitor's question, "because it's about a team. It's not about one person. People like to work together as a team, not for someone."
Stephen Ross has learned a lot about teams the past decade. He started the $15 billion first phase of this project about a decade ago when he won the rights to build. That's about the same time he took over as the third owner in the Miami Dolphins' storied history.
And while Hudson Yards already enjoys success and acclaim, the Dolphins have mostly languished.
Ross knows this. And as he spends the day at his burgeoning project-come-to-life _ on a walking tour, inspecting the site, in meetings _ he also has his sights set on raising the Dolphins to equal acclaim and stature in their respective domain.
"Long-term thinking," Ross says. "That's what you need to win in anything in life. If you think short-term, you might have immediate gratification, but it's not going to last. I'm a developer. I have long-term vision. You have to have long-term vision on a project such as this.
"I'm looking to do something that's going to last with the Dolphins so that we win year in and year out. And I have patience, which you guys questioned _ because most people don't. They can't take the pressure. Everything is for immediate gratification."
