![]() Vornado chairman Steven Roth has been a booster of the project for years, as well as a big supporter of Cuomo. The real estate company, which owns or manages nearly 20 million square feet of office space in Manhattan, owns more than half of the proposed development sites. One property holder, Vornado Realty Trust, stands to benefit most from the proposed scheme. The ESD directors voted to approve the project in late July, a key go-ahead for the plan. The Empire State Development Corporation, or ESD, a state authority, is leading the redevelopment negotiations and shepherding the project through multiple phases of planning and approval. He pushed the plan even as scandals threatened his power.Īfter Cuomo resigned, Hochul put her stamp on the project in November 2021, making promises that it would be scaled down by 1.3 million square feet, include affordable housing and create plazas open to the public. He introduced an updated project concept in his 2020 State of the State address - delivered just weeks before COVID-19 arrived in New York, and state officials began an initial review in July 2020. Then, in 2018, he laid the stage for the state to oversee the project with language declaring the Penn area a “ public safety hazard” in that year’s approved budget. Andrew Cuomo for getting the ball rolling.Ĭuomo first unveiled a concept to overhaul Penn Station in 2016, one part of which was realized - the transformation of a postal facility into Moynihan Train Hall. State officials hope the redevelopment will generate revenue from payments made by developers and owners of new property, which could then be used to make improvements to the existing Penn Station, along with the subway stations, streets and sidewalks around it.Ī long- long-term goal is, perhaps, to fund a future expansion of Penn Station to the blocks directly to its south. Hochul’s plan effectively transfers control of the footprint where those towers will go up from the city to the state, a scheme Mayor Eric Adams endorsed after ESD pledged to reimburse the city for that lost tax revenue. Two state authorities, the Empire State Development Corporation and the Public Authorities Control Board, have voted to approve the general project plan as of late July, even as many questions remain unanswered. The watchdog group Reinvent Albany estimates the state may end up with a shortfall between $3.4 billion and $5.9 billion. State lawmakers and watchdog groups are meanwhile questioning whether the real estate will bring in enough money to cover the costs of overhauling the transit hub. Nearby residents and business owners, as well as area elected officials, have called for the skyline-altering concept to be halted, or scrapped. Her administration has a plan to raise money from the development of new private towers around Penn Station to help fund part of the state’s share for redeveloping the station itself in the future.īut the project, which Hochul mostly inherited from her predecessor Andrew Cuomo, is facing major questions and criticism. ![]() Kathy Hochul is hoping she can change that. Revitalizing the transit hub, however, has eluded New York governors for decades. There’s near-unanimous consensus that Penn Station is a messy, uninspiring labyrinth overdue for a revamp.
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