State Details Penn Station Overhaul

By ELIOT BROWN, Special to the Sun | October 23, 2007

The state today outlined plans for a multi-billion dollar renovation of Pennsylvania Station and the surrounding area, signaling a resolve to carry out a project that has been little more than a concept for more than 15 years.

The planning document details more than 7 million square feet of new development, equivalent to more than two Empire State Buildings, in the context of the renovation, dubbed the Moynihan Station project, which would move Madison Square Garden into the rear of the neighboring Farley Post Office.

The document includes outlines to:

add two new skyscrapers built on both sides of One Penn Plaza on the block north of Madison Square Garden, sandwiching a 57-story tower with a building of up to 1 million square feet on the west and one of up to 2 million square feet on the east.

rezone several blocks surrounding Pennsylvania Station, shedding designations for manufacturing and allowing for commercial or residential towers to sprout around the new transit hub.

allow for the transfer of 4.3 million square feet of development rights from the Madison Square Garden site to nearby properties. (People briefed by the state on the project say developer Vornado Realty Trust, which would own the development rights, is expected to transfer rights to its own sites nearby, and either sell the remaining rights or buy more property in the area that could assume the rights.)

create a major retail hub in the remade Pennsylvania Station, including up to about 1 million square feet of retail space. (Grand Central Terminal, by comparison, has about 150,000 square feet of retail.)

create a sky-lit train hall in the interior of Pennsylvania Station, to be renamed Moynihan East, allowing natural light to cast upon multiple levels of the station.

The release of the planning documents comes about a year after the speaker of the Assembly, Sheldon Silver, blocked an attempt by the Pataki administration to advance a scaled down version of the plan. The Spitzer administration allowed developers Vornado and the Related Companies, which were awarded the contract for the Pataki administration's plan, to develop the larger project. The details of the project have yet to be finalized.

An alternative plan put forward in the planning document calls for building two skyscrapers in the place of Madison Square Garden, though state officials have moved away from the plan in part due to the high cost of construction.