[NYguy]

^ There will be multiple access points, similar to the way NJ Transit currently operates entrance points both at the main 8th Ave concourse, and the "newer" 7th Ave concourse.




http://therealdeal.com/2016/11/01/vornado-post-roth/

Envisioning a post-Roth Vornado: Will the REIT chief leave a void that’s impossible to fill?





November 01, 2016
By Hiten Samtani and Will Parker

West Side story

Vornado’s “big Kahuna,” Roth said earlier this year, is the repositioning of its Penn Plaza portfolio. Through stealth assemblage plays over the years, the company now controls more than 9 million square feet of office and retail space in the gritty shopping district. Penn Plaza has recently begun to shake off its rusty brand, in part due to the emergence of Midtown South as a tech tenant haven and the rise of Hudson Yards.

The REIT will soon begin renovations of its two major towers next door to Penn Station — One and Two Penn Plaza — both dated office skyscrapers that it plans to completely redesign and connect together, forming a 4.2 million-square-foot mega complex.

Roth recently told investors he hopes to push office rents in his Penn Plaza buildings from the mid-$50s per foot up into the $80s, more on par with new developments two blocks west at Hudson Yards. And much of the redesign, judging by how Vornado executives have described it on an earnings call, seems set on just that: making the buildings look more like their sprightlier Far West Side neighbors.

In March, Danish starchitect Bjarke Ingels released renderings for the new 2 Penn Plaza, a glass-and-steel tower with an undulating canopy at its base inspired by the iconic photograph of Marilyn Monroe posing in a white dress atop a blowing subway grate.

Sprucing up the Penn Plaza district is something Vornado has been obsessed with for years. More than a decade ago, Vornado and Related were tapped to redevelop the Farley Post Office into a train hall. The partners turned around and proposed something bolder: a $14 billion redevelopment that would have also transplanted Madison Square Garden across the street and replaced it with two skyscrapers, one taller than the Empire State building, and ten million square feet of office space. Then, in 2008, Gov. Eliot Spitzer resigned from office in the wake of his prostitution scandal, and plans for the new station and stadium were shelved.

“It just broke our hearts,” Roth said at a Columbia University talk in 2010. “Every time you go into Penn Station you should be a little bitter. Spit on the floor.”

By early 2016, Gov. Andrew Cuomo had pushed Vornado and Related out of the project altogether. But this September, Cuomo brought them back in the fold for a scaled-down version of the plan. In collaboration with the construction firm Skanska, the two developers will transform the Beaux Arts-style Farley Post Office into a train hall for the Long Island Rail Road, adding hundreds of thousands of square feet of commercial space along the way. The partners are expected to invest $600 million in the $1.6 billion project, which is slated for completion by 2020.

“We’re at the size now where [Roth] doesn’t need me and I don’t need him,” Related’s Ross told TRD in October. “But when we do something we do it because it works for both of us. And the fact is, we trust each other and we don’t let ego stand in the way of doing something, because certainly we both have the size and scale to do anything.”

A modernized Penn Station would be a boon to Vornado’s Penn Plaza bets. But observers question whether it could ever compete for top-tier tenants with Hudson Yards, which has signed the likes of L’Oreal, SAP, KKR and Time Warner.

“New product will always trade for a premium over existing product,” said JLL’s Rob Martin, who helped broker the Foot Locker flagship’s move to Vornado’s 330 West 34th Street. “But given the location, if [Roth] is able to modernize the buildings, he’ll be able to get a premium. Will it be on par with new construction? The market will tell.”