Good news about Penn/Moynihan/Farley station.
From the NY Times:
Schumer Seeks Federal Stimulus Funds to Jump-Start Moynihan Transit Project
By CHARLES V. BAGLI
Published: March 1, 2009
State officials selected two developers nearly four years ago for a grand project to transform the James A. Farley Post Office into a transit hub that would serve as an annex to Pennsylvania Station, the country’s busiest train station. Despite widespread support, the project has languished because of a lack of financing, political inertia, squabbles with transportation agencies and the developers’ ambitions.
Now, Senator Charles E. Schumer is calling for the injection of $100 million in federal stimulus funds to convert the post office building, expand the city’s transportation infrastructure and employ thousands of workers. Mr. Schumer also renewed his call for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey to take charge of the project and asked them to invest $1 billion.
Mr. Schumer said Amtrak should move to the Farley building from Penn Station; the latest proposal had called for relocating New Jersey Transit and the Long Island Rail Road there.
Either move would help relieve congestion at Penn Station, where 550,000 passengers a day make their way through cramped and confusing corridors. Amtrak, which operates the high-speed Acela trains in the Northeast, accounts for 62 percent of the combined air and rail market between New York and Washington.
“This is just what was envisioned by the stimulus: shovel-ready projects that generate a lot of jobs,” Mr. Schumer said in an interview on Sunday. “We want Amtrak to play the major role in the station. There is new funding that could help them do that. The focus is now on the station, letting private development follow rather than the other way around.”
Mr. Schumer’s proposal recognizes the inability of private developers in the current economic environment to advance the six office towers they had wanted to build as part of the train station project. At the same time, Mr. Schumer is trying to navigate roiling fiscal waters in which city, state and Port Authority officials are facing declining revenues and widening budget gaps.
“I think it’s a terrific idea,” said Robert Yaro, president of the Regional Plan Association, a nonprofit planning group. “There are a whole set of transportation investments that need to be made at the station. Obviously the real estate market will be flat for a while. But is $100 million enough to get the ball rolling? I don’t know.”
The project is named after Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, who first suggested in the 1990s using the Farley building to create a grand transit entrance to New York, something he said had been missing since the demolition of the above-ground Penn Station in 1968.
The Bloomberg administration and Gov. David A. Paterson seemed to endorse Mr. Schumer’s proposal.
“A redeveloped Penn Station would have enormous benefits for the entire region and would absolutely be a terrific use of federal transportation funds,” said Andrew Brent, a spokesman for Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg.
To avoid conflicts with the state and the city, Mr. Schumer did not call for the $100 million to come out of New York’s $21 billion portion of the federal stimulus package. Instead, he took aim at the $8 billion set aside for high-speed rail service and $1.3 billion set aside for Amtrak.
Mr. Schumer said that the state’s Congressional delegation, as well as Mayor Bloomberg and Governor Paterson, should pursue that money.
But he also called on the Port Authority to contribute at least $1 billion. The authority, which had been eager to gain control of the Moynihan project, has seen a sharp drop in revenues from tolls on its bridge and tunnel crossings and a rise in the cost of rebuilding the World Trade Center.
“The senator’s effort to get Moynihan started is consistent with the port’s goal of developing a financially viable project,” said Christopher O. Ward, executive director of the authority. “The key is to work with Amtrak on an important transportation project for the entire region. Finding the necessary funding is our No. 1 priority.”
The state has spent $230 million buying the blocklong Farley building, which sits across Eighth Avenue from Penn Station and Madison Square Garden.
Amtrak, which has endured budget cuts for years, is also eager to shore up its network, but it has been concerned about absorbing the estimated $15 million annual cost to operate at the Farley building. To offset those concerns, Mr. Schumer suggested that rent from new retailers at a new transit hub in the Farley building could go to Amtrak.
The developers involved in the Moynihan project — Stephen M. Ross, chief executive of Related Companies, and Steven Roth, chairman of Vornado Realty Trust — also seemed to back the Schumer proposal.
“I agree with this 100 percent,” Mr. Ross said. “This kind of transit project is a much greater stimulus than anything else that could be done in the city.”
In 2005, the developers won a bidding contest to create a train annex at the Farley and to develop a nearby office tower. But the project quickly swelled, with the developers proposing a $14 billion development, which involved demolishing Madison Square Garden to make way for a new train station and a half-dozen office towers, while erecting a new Garden inside the Farley building.
That project foundered because of its size and complexity, and Governor Paterson’s plan to unveil a new proposal focusing on transportation improvements fell by the wayside amid negotiations over the state budget.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/02/ny...2moynihan.html