Developers Related Companies and Vornado Realty might soon lose their job on the Penn Station expansion project if things don't pick up fast enough, The New York Times reports. Governor Andrew Cuomo is considering an overhaul of the stalled $900 million project that will see the Midtown Manhattan post office building, officially known as a the James A. Farley Post Office Building converted into an extension of Penn Station and a new retail venue.
The project is known as Moynihan Station and is named after the late senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, who first conceived of an idea to transform the post office building into a transportation hub.
In 2005, then governor George Pataki selected Vornado and Related from a group of competitors to work on Moynihan Station. Under the terms of the agreement, government funds would be used to work on expand the existing concourses and an underground passageway below the post office as well as the construction of a light-filled train hall in the upper portion of the post office. The developers in turn were to find commercial and retail tenants for that space.
The state has already begun work below the post office, which will cost a total of $300 million. And it's raising an additional $700 million for the train hall above.
But work on the developers' end has not moved forward. Twice they have tried to get Madison Square Garden to move into the post office building, and failed. They also tried to get a community college, and subsequently CBS to move into the building, but those ideas didn't pan out either, and now the Governor wants to kickstart the dormant development.
The state itself is considering moving the 5,600-seat theater that sits below Madison Square Garden to the post office to make more room in the existing Penn Station Terminal, but those plans have not been finalized.
Brookfield Properties and Extell Development have both expressed an interest in the project if things fall through with Related and Vornado, according to the Times.
· Cuomo Considers Reset for Long-Delayed Penn Station Expansion [New York Times]
· Long-Awaited Moynihan Station Is Actually Making Progress [Curbed]
· Moynihan Station Archives [Curbed]
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