A private development firm with an alternative vision for rebuilding Manhattan’s Pennsylvania Station said Wednesday its plan was significantly less expensive than a competing proposal backed by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.
ASTM North America’s new plan calls for the redevelopment of Penn Station, the busiest railroad junction in the United States, and the draping of Madison Square Garden with a soaring stone facade. The unveiling came days after New York Governor Kathy Hochul signaled the state was ready to move forward with the renovation.
ASTM officials in a presentation Tuesday said the company’s plan was better than the MTA-backed one because it would be $1 billion cheaper and would result in a more unified train hall.
The announcement would likely fuel a conflict between ASTM and the MTA, whose boss Janno Lieber said in April the plan was wasteful, in part because it would require paying a hefty fee to owners of Madison Square Garden, located at the station involved demolishing part of the complex.
Although Amtrak owns the building, the decision on which redevelopment plan to pursue should be made jointly by the railroad and the states of New York and New Jersey, which control the MTA and New Jersey Transit.
Civic leaders have been calling for a new Penn Station since at least the 1990s, when former Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan proposed converting the old James A. Farley Post Office building across Eighth Avenue into a concourse. That idea became a reality under former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, but did little to alleviate the crowded and drab conditions at Penn Station itself. Efforts to renovate the train junction were thwarted by the presence of an arena on it, and officials have been calling for the garden to be relocated for years, to no avail.
Although other plans to renovate Penn Station have been proposed over the years and then scrapped for failing to clear bureaucratic and political hurdles, several city and state officials, as well as heads of influential nonprofit organizations, have signaled their support for ASTM’s proposal. The majority of any renovation would be funded by state and federal tax dollars.
Responding to the MTA’s criticism, Peter Cipriano, senior vice president of ASTM North America, said in a presentation Tuesday that his company’s proposal would be more cost-effective and that there was a clear plan for funding.
“They total over $7 billion and where the money is coming from is completely unclear,” he said, citing cost estimates for the MTA plan that are as high as $10 billion.
The ASTM proposal would involve the purchase and demolition of the theater at MSG, a 160,000-square-foot venue on the west side of the entertainment complex, to make way for two new, light-filled train concourses: a grand entrance on Eighth Avenue with 55-foot ceilings and a 105-foot high atrium in the center of the block where trucks currently unload equipment. The refurbishment would improve access to all 21 tracks, reduce congestion and allow for additional track capacity on later modernizations. Construction could be completed in six years, the company said.
ASTM would provide $1 billion to kickstart the project and would rely on a mix of state and federal funds to cover the balance. The company would then manage and operate the station for 50 years, while the three rail companies using the space — Amtrak, New Jersey Transit, and MTA — would collectively pay about $250 million a year for the privilege. Any construction cost overruns would be borne by the private company.
The cost of buying the theater from MSG would be under $500 million, Mr. Cipriano said. As part of the ASTM plan, Madison Square Garden Entertainment, run by billionaire James Dolan, would also pay for the renovation of the garden’s distinctive drum.
The plan was unveiled in March. The design team, led by PAU and HOK, the architectural firm that helped design La Guardia Airport’s acclaimed Terminal B, has made several changes since then.
The glass box that would have surrounded MSG is gone, replaced by a contemporary neoclassical limestone or granite podium, whose lines echo the Corinthian columns of the Beaux-Arts Farley Building across the street.
The demolition of the theater would not only make room for a dramatic new entrance, but also make room for an alternative truck-loading plan that is critical to traffic flow, said Vishaan Chakrabarti, PAU’s creative director.
“This cannot be dismissed as cosmetic,” he said.
The MTA plan would achieve many of the same goals, with the exception of a new Eighth Avenue entrance, which the agency said was unnecessarily expensive given that the majority of passengers use the Seventh Avenue entrance. The MTA estimates the total cost of building the Eighth Avenue concourse at $1.5 billion to $2 billion.
Part of the reason why the ASTM plan is more cost-effective is that the design would not remove a key structural bridge between Seventh and Eighth Avenues. The move could add more than $1 billion to construction costs, Mr Chakrabarti said.
Jamie Torres-Springer, the president of MTA Construction and Development, said rebuilding the center block bridge is important to the agency’s plan.
ASTM also worked closely with engineering firms familiar with the intricacies of the garden. Mr. Torres-Springer said that the MTA has no interest in paying for technical details that are already in place.
“It’s very funny – every proposal, big or small, from ASTM involves paying MSG money,” said Mr. Torres-Springer.
A spokeswoman for MSG Entertainment said there have been no discussions with the MTA about charging the agency for engineering services.
On Monday, Ms. Hochul officially scrapped a plan to build 10 skyscrapers near the existing Penn Station to help fund a new train hub. She announced the start of a preliminary design process, which is expected to culminate in the state bidding for a contract for the project to be completed.
The timing of their announcement appeared to be no coincidence: it came just days before ASTM was expected to announce the financial details of its own plan.
The decision to omit the turret component came as no surprise. The 10-tower plan, which Ms. Hochul inherited from Mr. Cuomo, called for the development of millions of square feet of office space at a time when the commercial market is faltering and borrowing costs are high. Vornado Realty Trust, the developer tasked with building these skyscrapers, canceled its plans in February.
Ms. Hochul said she was “open to all kinds of scenarios,” which appeared to open up an opportunity for ASTM. She made the announcement alongside Mark Levine, the Manhattan borough president, who has effectively supported the ASTM plan, and Anthony Coscia, the Amtrak chairman whose railroad company is open to the idea. A spokesman for Amtrak declined to comment on the story.
But the ASTM plan is strongly opposed by Mr. Lieber, the MTA’s chief executive officer, who resents the idea of a private company interfering in a process he oversees.
He and his team pointed to the station’s new Long Island Rail Road corridor as evidence of the MTA’s ability to competently oversee large-scale projects, and he dismissed the idea of using Madison Square Garden Entertainment to acquire the theater at Am to pay MSG.
Madison Square Garden Entertainment has signaled openness to the ASTM plan. It seemed less receptive to the MTA’s proposal.
During a recent hearing on the Garden’s request to have its stadium operating license extended indefinitely, an MSG representative dismissed the MTA’s plan as “a concept piece” that “doesn’t technically work.”