PENN STATION

14 CityAndStateNY.com

August 8, 2022 POISON PENN

Expansive plazas with little seating and tall glass skyscrapers looks familiar to those watching Hudson Yards go up.

August 8, 2022 POISON PENN

Big real estate wants to save Midtown with the same mistakes it made at Hudson Yards.

By Maia Pandey

THE MYRIAD NETWORK of lawmakers, real estate developers, advocates and small-business owners embroiled in the Penn Station redevelopment seem to agree on one thing: The station is overdue for a face-lift. Though it remains the busiest train station in the country, the entirely underground structure sports no natural light, cramped platforms and corridors, and a plethora of confusing signage.

More than a year ago, then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo took on revamping the station, and Gov. Kathy Hochul’s administration has since taken up the mantle. But as progress inches forward, criticisms of the state’s plan have only grown stronger.

Last month, the state Public Authorities Control Board approved agreements between the city and state that outlined a funding model for the project. The model itself was what many advocates took issue with: The governor’s plan hinged on several skyscrapers that the state would allow commercial real estate developers to build around the station. Instead of taxes, the developers, namely Vornado Realty Trust, will make payments in lieu of taxes, or PILOT, to the state, which will help pay for the new Penn Station.

The vote did not solidify any agreements with developers, which opponents counted as a victory – including state Sens. Liz Krueger, Brad Hoylman and Robert Jackson, who have criticized the funding model.

“We will continue fighting alongside the commu-

Natural light would help Penn Station feel more like the original grandeur of the station that was torn down starting in 1963.

nity to ensure that those deals are not just corporate welfare for developers,” the senators wrote in a statement after the vote. “That means much more guaranteed affordable housing and no unnecessary tax breaks that reward developers for building projects they wanted to build anyway.”

Meanwhile, proponents of the governor’s plan hailed its potential to deliver more affordable housing units and jobs to Midtown. In statements after the vote, Carlo Scissura, president and CEO of the New York Building Congress, praised “the economic boost a reimagined Penn Station and surrounding community will deliver for the entire region,” while Vornado pledged in a statement to “deliver significant public realm and transit improvements across the district.”

But advocates said the specifics of how the sprawling redevelopment will actually revitalize the station and surrounding neighborhood were murky. According to an independent review by government watchdog Reinvent Albany released last month, the PILOT revenue could cover just over half of the total project cost, meaning the state will likely need to secure anywhere from $3.4 billion to $5.9 billion – which could end up leaving taxpayers footing a significant chunk of the project. Vornado, on the other hand, will receive up to a $1.2 billion tax break from the deal.

LARGER TRANSIT SYSTEM DEBATE

Some transit advocates have had criticisms of the proposed changes to the station itself. Hochul’s plan would rework the multilevel platform into a larger, single-level train hall with plenty of natural light. Despite the state’s renderings of a sweeping platform under a glass skylight, advocates pointed out that the reconstruction leaves Penn Station under Madison Square Garden. With the sports arena still sitting atop it, the amount of natural light would be unlikely to measure up to the state’s images.

According to the project documents, the other transportation improvements would center mostly on widening platforms and stairs, along with constructing new entrances and connectors across the station. Advocacy groups like ReThinkNYC, which proposed an alternate project plan, argued the redevelopment should be grounded in a more robust overhaul of the station.

ReThinkNYC’s proposal was based on establishing a “through-running” system at Penn Station, as opposed to its current “terminal” system. The system would hinge on allowing trains to continue in one direction after unloading and loading passengers, instead of reversing direction after unloading passengers. The group said transit hubs in London, Paris and downtown Philadelphia have adopted the strategy because it maximizes efficiency by avoiding trains crossing paths.

“(Through-running) is what modern international financial center cities are almost uniformly doing and have been doing for some time since the ’60s – London, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Paris and Madrid,” ReThinkNYC Chair Sam Turvey told City & State. “It’s the consensus standard, and why they are thinking about anything else is puzzling.”

Last year, an advisory committee of the Empire State Development released a report dismissing the possibility of converting Penn Station into a through-running system. “There are too many physical constraints and fatal flaws, the costs would be highly disproportionate to the limited benefits and the implications for the Moynihan Train Hall would be untenable,” the report said.

But Turvey said those reasons were relatively vague. While the committee re-

“They’re not the sort of high-class gentry portrayed in Vornado’s depiction of what it wants to do to the neighborhood.”

– Human-Scale NYC founding member Lynn Ellsworth, on Rangers fans who go to a local bar

It’s unlikely that local bars and businesses will be able to afford space to rent in the new skyscrapers.

ported “highly disproportionate” costs, ReThinkNYC has claimed its plan would save billions compared to the state’s current plan. To reconcile these discrepancies, Turvey said they have pushed for an independent review of a through-running proposal before the project breaks ground – and their requests have remained unmet.

AFFORDABLE HOUSING VERSUS “LUXURY CITY”

Alongside the station’s face-lifts, developers and lawmakers have also promised significant economic development and new affordable housing units in the neighborhood as a result of the plan. As part of the state’s plan, there could be as many as 1,800 housing units created, including 708 new affordable and supportive housing units.

But the new buildings could displace more than 400 businesses. A table of businesses potentially displaced by the project lists up to 10,000 workers who could be affected by the project. And while the largest company was an advertising firm with more than 2,000 employees, many of the businesses with fewer than five employees will almost certainly not be able to afford office spaces in the new skyscrapers.

The development would also displace 206 residents in 128 apartments. While the project would likely create more affordable housing units, nonprofit community group Human-Scale NYC founding member Lynn Ellsworth said the promises of “economic development” were more complicated than the developers claimed – especially if new housing units came at the expense of a network of restaurants, retailers and a local church.

“It’s cheap rent for little entrepreneurs of all kinds – theater companies, therapists, musicians, people just starting off with their new business,” Ellsworth said. “And for some reason, the city thinks we don’t need that kind of space, and (the idea that) we can just get rid of it and replace it with Class A office space is gentrification of the small-business sector.”

Ellsworth believes Vornado’s vision for the area around Penn Station contrasts with many of the businesses that currently occupy the neighborhood. The new office buildings promise to include rooftop pavilions and full-service restaurants with private dining rooms, along with the building Vornado has already redeveloped on West 34th Street.

Ellsworth said these developments will benefit few of the people living and working in the area, pointing to the Molly Wee Pub as a prime example of what will be lost. Located a block from Penn Station, the pub was among businesses slated for displacement if the project breaks ground.

“Go to the Molly Wee Pub diagonally across (from Moynihan Train Hall). The pub is full of a working-class population after a Rangers game having fun. They’re not the sort of high-class gentry portrayed in Vornado’s depiction of what it wants to do to the neighborhood,” Ellsworth told City & State.

Ellsworth said the development was indicative of a push to build a “luxury city” chock full of Class A offices as an approach to economic development. But, she added, fostering economic growth was more complicated than building skyscrapers, and it was unclear how a Hudson Yards-esque expansion would

benefit the surrounding neighborhood.

While the far West Side development took a significant hit in the months before the pandemic, the success of Hudson Yards remains uncertain more than three years after its initial launch. And even if the $25 billion development eventually delivers on its investment, it’s unclear how much value several more supertall office buildings within a couple blocks would add as only 8% of Manhattan office workers reported working in person five days a week earlier this year, according to Partnership for New York City. Ellsworth noted that while there was rarely a catch-all solution to fostering economic development, meaningful investments in transportation and education have always revamped communities.

HOLDING OUT FOR A RETURN TO PENN’S ORIGINAL GRANDEUR

Advocates like Turvey have pushed for a Penn Station renovation that builds on the foundation of the original station – a landmark above-ground structure that was demolished in 1963 to make room for Madison Square Garden. While relocating the arena was floated by lawmakers and advocates as part of the current Penn Station redevelopment, the idea was rejected by MSG executives.

“I personally think that if you rebuild the original Penn Station and reverse the architectural crime of the century,” Turvey said, “throughout the world little kids would be reading about this … and you would probably be generating four or five generations of tourists and other interest in the city.” ■ Maia Pandey is a New York City native and journalism student at Northwestern University.

OTHER NOTABLE RAIL HUB RENOVATIONS IN THE U.S.

It’s not just Penn Station that’s getting a major makeover.

By Dan Vock

BY MOVING forward with plans to renovate Penn Station, New York joins a growing list of cities that are hoping a major rail station redevelopment can help to revitalize the surrounding area.

Many of the plans share key elements: preserving and upgrading historic structures, adding better connections among different transportation modes and capitalizing on the potential in nearby real estate.

The projects are notable because the country has focused so much of its resources on building infrastructure for cars, while allowing its rail system to deteriorate, said Paul Angelone, senior director of the Curtis Infrastructure Initiative at the Urban Land Institute.

“As a nation, we need to regain the ability to actually think about these large, transformative projects. This used to be very common,” he said. “As you do things that are new, or just do them again for the first time in a long time, it gets a lot of attention. These (projects) are going to have a huge impact on a lot of people’s lives, so I think there’s a lot of excitement.”

DENVER AND MIAMI

One of the most successful rail hub renovations came in Denver in 2014, where the decadelong refurbishment of Union Station and related improvements to nearby rail yards set off a real estate boom in the Lower Downtown area.

The station is a hub for Amtrak, commuter rail, light rail and buses. Local leaders kept the century-old granite building that long served as the rail station, but, using a public-private partnership, converted most of it into a hotel, restaurants and other retail space. Next to the granite edifice, they added an open-air train hall framed by a white canopy stretched aloft on white steel girders.

The stunning architecture and the reconfiguration of 50 acres of nearby real estate that made the station possible reignited interest in Denver’s downtown. The $487 million project was at the center of a neighborhood reinvention. Local transit officials said it helped spark the development of 3,000 residential units, 1.9 million square feet of office space, 250,000 square feet of retail and 750 new hotel rooms within a few blocks.

In Miami, a privately built passenger rail station helped to reinvigorate a neglected part of the city’s downtown. The MiamiCentral train station and related developments span six blocks. It’s the southern end to a new passenger rail service, called Brightline, that connects to Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach, with extensions to Orlando and Tampa in the works. The station includes 816 rental residences, 130,000 square feet of retail space, a food hall and entertainment venues.

CHICAGO

The federal infrastructure law that Congress passed last year included $66 billion in various programs to fund new passenger rail service or upgrade existing facilities. Meanwhile, Amtrak’s financial situation had improved before the pandemic, allowing it to contemplate upgrades that long seemed out of reach. (Along with New York’s Penn Station, Amtrak owns stations in Chicago, Philadelphia and Baltimore. They are some of the busiest stations in the country, and it has plans to upgrade all of them.)

Officials from the Chicago area unveiled an ambitious $418 million proposal to overhaul the city’s Union Station and make related rail improvements around the rail hub. They want the federal government to pay $250 million of that total.

Some of the problems they’re trying to deal with in

Chicago’s historic but overcrowded central station are all too familiar for regular users of Penn Station.

For example, they’re trying to open up the concourse that passengers use to get to and from Amtrak and commuter rail lines. Currently, customers in Chicago often have to navigate a warren of cramped hallways to get to their trains.

Two office buildings sit above Union Station’s tracks, limiting the options for new configurations. But Amtrak, which owns the facility, has slowly been clearing the space. It relocated ticket counters, offices and a passenger lounge from the crowded concourse to the more spacious – and iconic – adjacent building.

Now, Amtrak and local agencies want to move escalators and raise ceilings in the concourse, making it more open and easier to navigate. The Chicago consortium also wants to widen platforms and reactivate platforms once reserved for mail transport. That would increase capacity and decrease overcrowding, especially at rush hour.

Beyond the station upgrades, Illinois officials are asking for track improvements that would reduce delays on trains running to Detroit and southern Illinois, and they want to add the ability for some trains to run through the station.

“While these are big-ticket items, there are big needs here in Chicago,” said Amtrak CEO Stephen Gardner when the plan was announced in July.

PHILADELPHIA AND WASHINGTON, D.C.

In Philadelphia, officials want to make improvements to the 30th Street Station to accommodate anticipated ridership growth as well as to rejuvenate a section of the city isolated by nearby rail yards and an interstate highway.

“The vibrancy found within the walls of Gray 30th Street Station does not yet extend to the district around it,” architects from the firm SOM wrote about the plans.

The first step to improve the situation in Philadelphia was a 50-year deal with an Australian infrastructure company to refurbish, improve and maintain the station.

But the bigger vision, developed after two years of public input, was a $10 billion effort to make the rail station the centerpiece of a neighborhood transformation. That included $2 billion for station improvements and other public amenities, $4.5 billion in private real estate investments over 88 acres of existing rail yards and $3.5 billion for a major development from Drexel University just west of the station.

Meanwhile, in Washington, D.C., the Federal Railroad Administration wants to build over the train tracks as part of an effort to improve Amtrak’s second-busiest station. The agency and its partners, though, ran into trouble with their first plan to do so because local officials and businesses complained that the proposal for Union Station included too much space for parking, which would limit the station’s value as an intermodal hub.

In June, the agency unveiled an updated plan, which would include less parking and put it underground. Other major improvements proposed included a new train hall, more tracks, better connections to buses, expanded retail and new entrances around the building. And Akridge, a development company, could add a dozen buildings over 15 acres of existing tracks, in a $3 billion project known as Burnham Place.

Angelone, from the Urban Land Institute, said the changes to the Washington, D.C., plans were a “fabulous example” of how community input could improve a design. The parking garages were initially included because they would generate revenue, but the feedback helped clarify that the community had different priorities, he said. “Is your goal to move a lot of people and build a stronger community or is it just to drive revenue?” he said.

Many of the plans for improving rail stations also demonstrated the importance of connecting them to neighborhoods, Angelone added. “It’s not just an open rail yard. It’s a continuation of the city. I think that’s a powerful and important thing. Building those spaces is important, even if they don’t pay for themselves,” he said. “There’s a lot of value beyond just the dollars and cents of how you structure these things.”

Denver’s Union Station reignited interest in downtown and brought more development to the area.