http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/05/ny...=nyregion&_r=0
New Idea for Penn Station Entails Relocating a College
By CHARLES V. BAGLI
February 4, 2013
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In the early 1990s, Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan proposed transforming the sprawling post office on Eighth Avenue, with its Corinthian columns, into a grand entryway to the busiest transit hub in North America, Pennsylvania Station. Since then, a succession of plans for what is to be known as Moynihan Station have surfaced with fanfare, only to sink later. Now, a major developer is promoting a proposal to improve the viability of the project by moving the Borough of Manhattan Community College to the back of the post office, which is across Eighth Avenue from Madison Square Garden and Penn Station.
Under the proposal by the developer, the Related Companies, the community college would move 3.8 miles north of its current location downtown to 1.1 million square feet of space in the post office building. The college would be the anchor tenant in the complex. Related Companies would simultaneously build a new train hall, train platforms and underground connections to the cramped and labyrinthine Penn Station at the front end of the post office. In return, Related would receive the college’s potentially valuable campus, which spans four city blocks near the Hudson River, for residential development.
Related’s chairman, Stephen M. Ross, has spent more than a year wooing college officials, and he met last month with senior officials in the administration of Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, hoping to persuade them that this is the best way to move the project forward, real estate executives said. But Mr. Cuomo and the City University of New York, which runs the college, have not embraced the proposal, which has been perceived by some in the real estate industry as more advantageous for Related than for the college.
Michael Arena, a CUNY spokesman, would say only that officials have had “preliminary discussions with” Related. Matthew L. Wing, a spokesman for the governor, said, “We’re reviewing the proposal.” Related would not comment on the proposal, which was described by real estate executives who have been briefed on it.
Nearly eight years after Related, and its development partner, Vornado Realty Trust, were selected by the state to build Moynihan Station, the developer is loath to relinquish its development rights. And today, the state has no desire to end the partnership, if only because it would have to reimburse Related for about $25 million in expenses related to the project.
Senator Moynihan wanted to transform the post office building to improve the cramped train station, which is used by more than 500,000 commuters a day. It was also meant to be an act of civic redemption for the 1963 demolition of the much-admired glass and steel train shed that soared over the underground portion of the station. Both the old Penn Station and the post office building were designed by the same firm — McKim, Mead & White. But the development partners had a far more ambitious, $14 billion plan in mind. They sought to demolish Madison Square Garden, which sits over Penn Station, and build a new arena for the Knicks and Rangers inside the post office. With the Garden gone, they planned to overhaul Penn Station, erecting a glass-enclosed train hall, along with department stores and, nearby, office and residential buildings.
The complicated plan collapsed in 2008 because of the recession.
Currently, the state’s development corporation is overseeing about $300 million in work beneath the post office building to create two entrances for Amtrak commuters at 31st and 33rd Streets and to expand the train platforms and the passageway to Penn Station.
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