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Vornado plans overhaul of Penn Plaza led by Snohetta

JUNE 2, 2015
Bloomberg News

Vornado Realty Trust, the dominant property owner in the area surrounding Manhattan's Pennsylvania Station, hired the Snohetta architecture firm to design a master plan for an overhaul of its real estate in the district.

"It's the busiest transportation hub in North America, but it has very much been left behind," Mark Ricks, Vornado's senior vice president of development, said Monday evening at a meeting of a committee of Community Board 5, a group of neighborhood residents.

Snohetta, the Oslo-based firm that designed the public plaza in Times Square, has been asked to create a "framework" for the redesign of Vornado's buildings and street-level spaces in Penn Plaza, Ricks said. The landlord also is planning to close off a portion of West 33rd Street and limit nearby vehicular traffic in an experiment that may lead to a permanent pedestrian area near Madison Square Garden.

New York City officials have long wanted improvements in the area, which has suffered since the 1960s, when the old Beaux Arts Penn Station was torn down and replaced by Madison Square Garden and an office building, with the train station pushed underground. Fixing up the Penn Station and Madison Square Garden area is Vornado's "Big Kahuna," Chairman Steven Roth said in his annual letter to investors in April.

Roth has said he wants to capitalize on the development taking place to the west of the station, including the transformation of the James A. Farley post office building into a new regional transportation hub to be called Moynihan Station, and the Hudson Yards developments further to the west.

'Inextricably Linked'

Many Vornado buildings "are inextricably linked" to Penn Station, Ricks said. The real estate investment trust has more than 9 million square feet (836,000 square meters) of properties in Penn Plaza, including the 2 Penn Plaza office building above Penn Station and 1 Penn Plaza just to the north.

"As a public company with obligations to our shareholders, we want them to think about opportunities to upgrade our holdings for the benefit of our office tenants and shoppers, but we've also asked them to consider how to effectuate meaningful improvements to the station experience," Ricks said.

Once Snohetta's master plan is complete, different architects may be engaged to redesign individual buildings and public spaces, Ricks said.

"Snohetta and Vornado are working together to enliven the Penn District," Craig Dykers, a founder of the architecture firm, said in an e-mailed statement. "Our goals are to promote comfort and cultivate new identity to the district, dramatically improving the pedestrian, commuter and working environments surrounding what is the busiest transportation hub in America."

Street Closures

Vornado is poised to at least partially close off some streets that service what Ricks called "the collision of humanity," the hundreds of thousands of commuters who jam the streets near Penn Station. He described these closings as a temporary effort to collect data to be used to devise more permanent solutions.

Starting around July 19, and extending to Oct. 11, 33rd Street between Seventh Avenue and the Garden's loading dock will be completely closed, Ricks said. The street will be transformed into a pedestrian plaza, which could feature tables for dining, as well as musical performances, games and other forms of entertainment. Images he showed the committee included a yoga class and a juggler.

Thirty-Second Street would be limited to a single travel lane of vehicles, to open up more space for people to freely walk. The Vornado-owned Hotel Pennsylvania and Manhattan Mall make up the entire north side of that block.

Vornado has agreed to pay all costs associated with these efforts, Ricks said. He said the company plans to work "in close consultation" with the city and the 34th Street Partnership, which represents retailers in the area.

Ricks previously served as chief of staff to then-Deputy Mayor Daniel Doctoroff, who later became president of Bloomberg LP, the parent company of Bloomberg News.

Gloria Chin, a spokeswoman for the city department of transportation, didn't immediately respond to an e-mailed inquiry about the project.