Wow..I missed this opportunity from Vengineer much like the World Trade Center ones
I need to stop working so much and take a little time during the day to go online.
The renderings that were posted were massing models that didn't really show the shape all that much.Originally Posted by Dagrecco82
Wow..I missed this opportunity from Vengineer much like the World Trade Center ones
I need to stop working so much and take a little time during the day to go online.
Dagnabbit ... Missed the Vengineer exclusive once again
I know somebody saved those images ...
Could some body PM me and maybe we can arrange an email
Thanks in advance ......
http://www.cpnonline.com/cpn/propert..._id=1003285425
Next Step Unclear After Silver Blocks $900M Moynihan Station Project
October 19, 2006
By Adam Perrotta, News Writer
The $900 million Moynihan Station project (pictured), one of the key components of the redevelopment of Manhattan's West Side, has been--if not killed entirely--dealt a significant blow, likely to set back plans until at least after a new governor takes office in January, and perhaps much longer than that.
At a meeting yesterday of the state Public Authorities Control Board--a body run by Governor George Pataki, state Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno and state Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, the approval of which was necessary for the Moynihan Station project to move forward-- Silver refused to approve the development, citing concerns that an alternative plan was superior, as well as questioning the legality of certain funding arrangements made for the project by Pataki.
The plan to develop the station as a major rail hub has been formed over approximately the past decade. Under the rejected plan, The James A. Farley Post Office Building located between 31st and 33rd Streets, across Eight Avenue from Penn Station and Madison Square Garden, would be purchased by the state and transformed into a 300,000-square-foot station serving Long Island Railroad and New Jersey Transit trains, thus alleviating the overcrowding at Penn Station and providing an appropriately grand rail gateway to the city. The plan also called for 850,000 square feet of retail and hotel space.
However, in May, the project's developers, Vornado Realty Trust and The Related Cos., put forth a more ambitious plan, dubbed Plan B, which involved moving Madison Square Garden across the street to the Farley Building's western annex, thus freeing up the air rights for the area above the existing arena, which would be demolished. Under Plan B, a glass canopy would be built over the current Penn Station site, as well as a shopping mall and office, hotel and residential space.
A statement released by Silver's office, reiterated the Speaker's reiterated preference for the more ambitious plan, but also highlighted a compromise offered by Silver, under which the PACB would approve the purchase of the Farley building while continuing to debate the merits of each proposal. Pataki rejected the compromise plan.
Also in the statement, Silver accused Pataki of illegally approving $50 million, without the PACB's approval, toward a nonrefundable $100 million down payment for the Farley site. Empire State Development Corp. Chairman Charles Gargano, Pataki's top economic development official, rejected the accusation in a statement today.
Some see the move by Silver, a Democrat, as a politically motivated attempt to deny the Republican Pataki the legacy of seeing groundbreaking on Moynihan Station during his tenure as Governor, which likely would have occurred had the project been approved.
Whatever Silver's aims, it is clear that the project will now likely go back to the drawing board. It remains to be seen whether current Attorney General Elliot Spitzer, who is expected to be elected Governor in November, will move forward with either a modified existing plan, or an entirely new one. Spitzer has joined Silver in criticism of the financing and merits of the plan in the past.
Meanwhile, several sources knowledgeable about the situation said that the immediate future posed many questions, such as what would happen to the $130 million in federal funding earmarked for the project and whether or not Pataki would be able to terminate the deals with Vornado and Related.
The Moynihan Station plan had enjoyed widespread support from civic organizations and government officials, and was viewed as a key component of the larger scale redevelopment of Manhattan's West Side, which includes the development of the Hudson Rail Yards, the extension of the number 7 subway line, the expansion of the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center and the development of the area surrounding the formerly-abandoned High Line elevated train track, currently being transformed into a park.
It remains to be seen what effect, if any, the Moynihan Station troubles will have on the other developments, though one source knowledgeable about the project, who wished to remain anonymous, told CPN, "I'm very disappointed that they didn't go ahead with the project. It was much needed, and it was going to be necessary for a lot of that development on the West Side."
Others, however, expected little to no effect on the other projects, which are all in some stage of moving forward.
The design process is repositioning to the MSG alternate plan. The plan sets for the current Moynihan Station which took years to develop are being relegated to the bottom of the stack and the under-developed plan sets for MSG-ALT are being pushed up to the top. Project folders are being changed and files and their directories are being swapped and altered. I guess this is it. Say goodbye to the "grand" Moynihan Station. Now it's just a truncated train terminal.
Also, it appears the west building a.k.a. annex. a.k.a. MSG side will be considered a seperate project which calls for a seperate design team. SOM will not be the architects for the MSG side and the Venture has hired another set of companies to design within the same building due to 'conflict of interest' issues. This will undoubtedly result in a coordination madhouse and turn the project into a shitshow. Pardon my french.
Last edited by Vengineer; October 20th, 2006 at 10:56 AM.
Thank's for confirming what I said before, 'Moynihan Station' goes down in history as another "What if?" along with the Jets Stadium. Any hopes I had of walking into a brand new train station on my way to work has been flushed as well. Hopefully by the time this project gets off the ground (atleast 10-15 yrs) I will have found a better job in another part of town and no longer care what happens to this sorry neighborhood.
So SOM would be responsible for designing the tall conspicious towers in this site....... effing greeeat.
Yeah, right. The station project will be revived in some shape or form because activists are going to continue demanding it, and continue demanding it, and continue demanding it. Say what you will about Moynihan going on the scrap-heap, but the facts remain:
1) Friends of Moynihan Station isn't going anywhere. Their website is still up.
2) The point that Silver used while nixing Pataki's version of Moynihan was that it was TOO SMALL and not grand enough. He wanted more services, more retail, and more responsible financing (read: money that doesn't get run past his nose behind his back). Spitzer seems to be in the same boat.
3) Even Silver and Spitzer want to do something with the Farley building. That means that they still want to keep it available.
4) Farley is a historic building: thus, there will be heavy outcry and a huge slap in the face if the Farley gets messed around or overhauled too much - from the historical preservation boards of NYC. While Madison Square Garden at Farley is quite doable, there will also be continued promotion of the original Moynihan idea.
5) Pataki will try to weasel out of standing contracts with real -estate companies to build Moynihan/ fiddle with Farley, but it might not be that easy to do. Can you say "lawsuit"?
6) If he DOES weasel out, any plan promoted by any activist is fair game for consideration, because the companies will have to compete for attention again. Such plans include the Moynihan idea.
7)After Spitzer's election, the man to watch out for will no longer be Silver but Joe Bruno - because he would be the man in the troika of a different political party than the other two. I haven't seen much in the press about Bruno and the danger he represents to progress. Well, there you go.
I'm confident that Moynihan and a grand Penn Station remain doable and can be done - under Silver and Spitzer - so long as they find a way to get Bruno to cooperate.
I dunno - Shelly seems to be a spoiler more often than not
I just don't see him approving anything that takes precious office space away from lower manhattan
If Shelly boy was as diligent in keeping Jersey City from taking away so many of the city's job and wealth, as he is in stifling the rest of the city, we'd all be so much better off.
See all those towers across the river in Jersey City, Shelly?
New York helped build them.
MAYOR GLUM OVER NIX OF TRAIN STATION
By TOM TOPOUSIS
October 20, 2006 -- The defeat of a $900 million project to convert the Farley Post Office into a rail terminal called Moynihan Station will only make it harder to build a new Madison Square Garden and renovate Penn Station in the future, Mayor Bloomberg said yesterday.
Moynihan Station was derailed in Albany when Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver used his vote on the Public Authorities Control Board to block the project, saying he would consider only a much broader proposal that includes a new arena and Penn Station.
"I was disappointed that Plan A, as they call it, for the Moynihan Station has been stalled. Hopefully it has not been killed," Bloomberg said. "I think the likelihood of doing Plan B, a much larger project, is unfortunately diminished because you don't have Plan A going."
Copyright 2006NYP Holdings, Inc. All rights reserved.
Can't say I'm going to miss the Moynihan station. Dumb idea in the first place! The original Penn Station was brilliantly conceived and built. Any new station should go right where the existing one is. That being said, I don't know why we can't all have the best of possible worlds, here. So here goes my Plan 9, for lack of a better term:
1. A rebuilt, spectacular Penn Station...right where it is, thank you.
2. A new MSG, right on top, extending out and over side streets to use the air rights. (why not? It's a great way to use space.)
3. 4 office mega-towers on each corner, intentionally beaux-arts.
4. Design elements from the original Penn Station, including use of actual artifacts unearthed from the swamps of New Jersey. Archeological dig would be necessary but...so what. Would make a great NOVA special.
Saaaay...what's in this can of Coke I'm drinking???
I think the fresh October air got to ya.
I'm telling you right now this is whats going to happen.
- sorting out all the Moynihan mess | time atleast 2 years
- design of new MSG, design of towers, redesign of penn station and sorting out who will pay for what | time atleast 4 years
- actual construction of new MSG before anything can happen to the old Penn Station and demolition of msg| time atleast 5 years
- demolition of old MSG etc. while keeping Penn Station open and construction of glass ceiling inbetween two office towers and construction of office towers | time atleast 6 years
Oh and I'm being conservative...
Oh and about Silver and Pataki, atleast Pataki was elected.
"Democracy takes decades to take root and flourish. New York is learning that it takes just three men in a room to maim and seriously harm a vigorous and representative system of government."—from Three Men in a Room
...Silver has no control over Jersey City because it's in New Jersey - it's across the river from the Apple...
Anyhow, I figure Silver's been the spoilsport because he is a Democrat and the leaders of the senate and exec branch are Republicans. Once Spitzer comes in, the balance would lead to Silver and Spitzer (both Democrats) on the one hand and Bruno (a Republican) on the other. This would explain Bloomberg (a Republican)'s taking Pataki's (a Republican) point of view on the Moynihan station issue in recent months. Yes, support had been bipartisan in earlier months, but for some reason or other, Silver decided to make the Moynihan issue his vehicle of harassing the Republicans, whereas he could've gone for another issue instead. Perhaps he really doesn't want Midtown getting anything and Downtown getting everything, but more likely he a) is annoyed at Pataki, b) saw a convenient issue to trash him over, c) had reservations about only building a concourse for New Jerseyans (not his constituents) rather than helping to develop NYC as a whole (Pataki and Bruno are more of the upstate kind and Silver is the troika member holding the fort for NYC, so he OUGHT to be inclined to contribute to New York City's economy), and d) found Pataki going behind his back to support Moynihan (and thus snubbing him in the process). It's petty politics at its worst. With Paturkey out of the way, that dynamic will hopefully be gone - and Bruno might become the bad guy, for he's the third member and Republicans would no doubt try to egg him on.
Even if Shelly boy had approved the concourse off the cuff, construction would still have taken years, there'd still be a mess to sort out (because of Madison Square Garden's movement), and we'd still be looking at several years before completion of development. I suspect that we're looking at something like a coupla years' delay because of this three-men-in-a-room nonsense so far.I think the fresh October air got to ya.
I'm telling you right now this is whats going to happen.
- sorting out all the Moynihan mess | time atleast 2 years
- design of new MSG, design of towers, redesign of penn station and sorting out who will pay for what | time atleast 4 years
- actual construction of new MSG before anything can happen to the old Penn Station and demolition of msg| time atleast 5 years
- demolition of old MSG etc. while keeping Penn Station open and construction of glass ceiling inbetween two office towers and construction of office towers | time atleast 6 years
Oh and I'm being conservative...
Oh and about Silver and Pataki, atleast Pataki was elected.
"Democracy takes decades to take root and flourish. New York is learning that it takes just three men in a room to maim and seriously harm a vigorous and representative system of government."—from Three Men in a Room
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote
Bookmarks