New Penn Station (Moynihan Station)

[ZippyTheChimp]

1. Subway access -- The current Penn Station is nestled between 2 vital subway lines, and one block away from another 2 lines. The A/C/E provides access to the East side, and the 1/2/3 gives access to the West side. The new Penn Station would have access to 1 subway line, and be within one block of another 1 line.

Are you talking about the Farley portion of the station? The project will include the present Penn Station.

The biggest driving factor in what is referred to as "plan B" is the release of air rights over MSG.

[ASchwarz]

Joekinde, the existing Penn Station will continue to function.

The "New Penn Station" is really a dramatic above-ground expansion of the existing station. The current underground station runs from Seventh to Ninth Avenues. The expanded station will have a similar footprint, but will have two dramatic above ground spaces: the Moynihan (post office) portion to the west and the Penn Plaza (current MSG) portion to the east.

Therefore, there will be no loss of subway accessibility.

The NJ Transit expansion in the current station is separate from and compatible with the above-ground expansion.

The LIRR is not leaving Penn. They are just adding service to Grand Central. Similarly, there are plans for Metro North at Penn.

In addition to the planned NJ Transit expansion projects in the existing Penn, there will eventually be a large new station expansion underneath 34th Street. It will serve dramatically expanded NJ Transit routes once the new tunnel opens. This station will be connected to Penn and will serve both the existing tunnel and the new tunnel.

[NYguy]

http://sec.edgar-online.com/2007/04/...9/Section7.asp

VORNADO REALTY LP
Form:8-K Filing Date:4/26/2007

To Our Shareholders

Development/Redevelopment


Ground-up development, redevelopment and repositioning are essential and
differentiating skills of our business. Our pipeline is huge and runs the gamut
from the multi-billion dollar Penn Plaza district transformation (Farley/Moynihan Station/Madison Square Garden relocation/Penn Station/ Hotel Pennsylvania) to District of Columbia new-builds to the Bergen and Springfield mall mega fixer-uppers to dozens of other projects, see Appendix III for project-by-project detail.


Farley Update

We and our partner, the Related Companies, have been designated
developer to convert the Farley Post Office Building, which occupies the super
block between 31st and 33rd Streets from 8th to 9th Avenues, to the Moynihan Train Station. This project has been expanded to incorporate the adjacent super block to the east and will now involve relocating Madison Square Garden to the 9th Avenue side of Farley (to be developed and owned by MSG), permitting us to develop on the old Madison Square Garden site a great, soaring Penn Station, 5.5 million square feet of mixed-use new-builds, and incorporating our existing 1.5 million square foot Two Penn Plaza into a 7 million square foot complex. This long-term project has been publicly endorsed by City and State officials and is now in the approval process.

The joint venture is working hard on documentation, design, budgets, etc. A giant step forward was taken on March 30, 2007 when New York's Empire State Development Corporation completed the acquisition of the Farley building from the United States Postal Service. Vornado assets surround this project-One Penn Plaza, Two Penn Plaza, 11 Penn Plaza, Hotel Pennsylvania and various retail properties. As with all development projects, there may be significant scope changes and there can be no assurance that this project will commence, or if commenced, be completed on schedule or within budget.

[BrooklynRider]

...As for myself, I think its time for me to depart this forum. It'll be more constructive for my motivation. I enjoyed the construction photos so maybe I'll check back once in awhile but I'll be sure to skip the commentaries. Thank you all and sorry for anyone I may have offended with this article. Opinions are opinions.

I hope you do reconsider. You wrote an excellent and illuminating essay for the forum. We all have to stake out some territory. You did it quite well and kept it relevant and avoided insults and fingerpointing. It can be challenging to post here, but you have the tools to make the contrary argument. Would you rather be in an echo box?

C'mon VEngineer, stick around. I think we all value your knowledge - you offer insights we don't necessarily have expressed here too often.

[Fahzee]

from Todays NY Post - a pessimistic take on the Farley plans.....

TRAIN 'WRECK' By TOM TOPOUSIS



June 4, 2007 -- Negotiations over turning the Farley Post Office into a train station and a new home for Madison Square Garden are hurtling down the fast track, prompting concerns by preservationists that the historic building could be overwhelmed by the arena. "We don't want the Garden swallowing the station at Farley," said Peg Breen of the Landmarks Conservancy. "We want a real, well-designed train station there."
Breen blasted plans that would remove the U.S. Postal Service's remaining retail unit at Farley and use the antique postal windows for Garden ticket sales.
The plans, Breen said, also call for replacing a solid wall separating the eastern and western sides of the massive post office with a glass wall so that anyone entering the train station from Eighth Avenue would get an unobstructed view of the Garden on the Ninth Avenue side.

"They want to turn the train station into the forecourt of the Garden," Breen said, predicting that the proposed design would subvert the idea of using Farley - originally designed as a companion piece to the old Penn Station - to reclaim some of the history that was lost when that station was demolished in the 1960s.

Pat Foye, chairman of the Empire State Development Corp., recently tried to allay fears among preservationists, insisting that the state would not allow the historic Eighth Avenue entrance to the building to become a billboard for the Garden.
The new station is to be named for the late Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan.

[Bob]

A fresh set of Twin Towers would be perfect for this site.

[londonlawyer]

Developers To Detail $14B Plans Around Penn Station
By ELIOT BROWN
Special to the Sun
June 14, 2007


A plan for building a set of towering skyscrapers, two grandlyscaled train halls, and a new Madison Square Garden around the existing Pennsylvania Station are rapidly advancing, and the state hopes to begin the public review process for the project, known as Moynihan Station, in the next few weeks.

The developers' revised designs, which are said to include a pair of towers taller than the Empire State Building to be built on the current site of Madison Square Garden, could swiftly transform Midtown South into a thriving epicenter of commercial activity centered around one of the largest transit hubs in the country.

The proposals, which could cost more than $14 billion including the private development, are being shown to elected officials and community groups by a joint development team, Vornado Realty

Trust and the Related Companies.

A spokesman for New York's Empire State Development Corporation said the state has yet to complete negotiations about the complex development rights and possible public subsidies for the renovation of Penn Station. Developers say they hope to start construction in 2008 after the sometimes lengthy process of public approval is completed.

The project takes its name from the late Senator Moynihan, who favored the concept of transforming part of the Corinthiancolumned Farley Post Office building, which sits across Eighth Avenue from Madison Square Garden, into a train station reminiscent of the original Penn Station. It has been under consideration for at least 15 years and faced numerous financial and political obstacles.

While the developers had publicly discussed their vision for the comprehensive plan about a year ago, the concept is now refined, more specific, and closer to reality, people familiar with the plans said, and come after a spider web of discussions among the numerous stakeholders that has gone on for months.

People familiar with the designs say they call for a complex containing 5.5 million square feet built on what is now Madison Square Garden. Primarily office buildings, it includes two towers whose spires will be taller than 1,400 feet. Another tower, to be built along Seventh Avenue near One Penn Plaza, would utilize 2 million square feet of developable air rights transferred from the Farley Post Office site.

Under the plans, the existing Pennsylvania Station would be reconfigured to allow natural light into the train hall, which is now buried under low ceilings.

"The whole place will be flooded with daylight," the president of the developers' Moynihan Station Venture team, Vishaan Chakrabarti, said. He called it "a dramatically nicer space that, again, is larger than the main room at Grand Central."

Given its scale, the project could be extraordinarily lucrative for the developers. Vornado has a significant number of other holdings in the area that would presumably skyrocket in value. The magnitude of the project also makes it risky, the developers say, especially since the most lucrative part of the complex — the private towers in the place on the current Garden site — could not be completed until near the end of the project, which could take up to 10 years.

"If you think about it, the place where we make any money is the towers that get built last — it's an extraordinary risk," Mr. Chakrabarti said.

Historic preservation groups, including the Municipal Art Society and the Landmarks Conservancy, have expressed concerns that the main hall in the Farley building would effectively be turned into an entrance for a new sports arena; they took issue with the possibility of using the post office's original sales windows as ticket booths for events.

The developers say the rebuilt Madison Square Garden acts as a critical component for that space.

"It certainly moves the center of gravity of Midtown to the south and the west, and it effectively expands the Midtown central business district with a significant new anchor," the chief executive officer of the Partnership for New York City, Kathryn Wylde, said.

[TomAuch]

No way this proposal will get built. Other than the FT and the new 2 WTC, I don't see anything over 1,000-1,100 feet getting built any time soon.

[macreator]

This is fantastic news. While I'm always wary of "spires" contributing to the height of a tower, let's say worse case that the spires contribute 300 feet to the 1,400 foot height of the towers, that would still place the rooflines of the towers at at least 1,100 feet. At this rate NYC could have a dozen towers over 1,000 feet within a decade.

[TomAuch]

This is fantastic news. While I'm always wary of "spires" contributing to the height of a tower, let's say worse case that the spires contribute 300 feet to the 1,400 foot height of the towers, that would still place the rooflines of the towers at at least 1,100 feet. At this rate NYC could have a dozen towers over 1,000 feet within a decade.

The good news about having more supertalls is that it will be harder to make the "it's a terror target" argument, because 1,000-1,100 feet will become the new "average" for height. Of course, I don't want just ANY design to be used for a thousand-footer. We don't need every tall building looking like Trump World Tower.

[Derek2k3]

it includes two towers whose spires will be taller than 1,400 feet.

Though most of us have already known this, reading this in an article just sounds amazing.

[antinimby]

If these towers and the new station look anything like what we saw in those teaser renderings that was leaked out a couple of months here and quickly retracted, then I am not impressed.

[ablarc]

...It certainly moves the center of gravity of Midtown to the south and the west, and it effectively expands the Midtown central business district with a significant new anchor...

Plenty of pressure to redevelop the Garment District.

[NYguy]

No way this proposal will get built. Other than the FT and the new 2 WTC, I don't see anything over 1,000-1,100 feet getting built any time soon.

And why is that???

[NYguy]

If these towers and the new station look anything like what we saw in those teaser renderings that was leaked out a couple of months here and quickly retracted, then I am not impressed.

It won't be those teaser renderings...

People familiar with the designs say they call for a complex containing 5.5 million square feet built on what is now Madison Square Garden. Primarily office buildings, it includes two towers whose spires will be taller than 1,400 feet

We didn't get that...