NEW YORK | 15 Penn Plaza (Hotel Penn) | 1,050 FT / 315 M | 52 FLOORS

[Doubleu1117]

Very please with the current design. Seems complimentary to the ESB in a way.
Hoping the re-opening/ renovation of the Gimbels passage is included in all this.

[Crawford]

I really hope SocGen signs here. Would be a huge boost for the Penn District.

And yeah, Vornado is required to rebuild the Gimbels passageway as part of Penn 15.

[Hudson11]

The Pelli design was for a different era, but it could have been adapted for today. Those notches in the facade would have made space for great outdoor terraces, not to mention the space atop of the massive base. Oh well.

[NYguy]

Like 2 WTC, this is overall a smaller tower than previous versions. The design is modern, but a throwback to classic NY skyscraper design, a Rockefeller Center for our times, if they stick with this theme.

Originally Posted by NYguy

Latest renderings...(renderings have a slightly different massing than the graphic rendering)



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[patriotizzy]

This is so low effort and pathetic for such a prominent and high profile location. Do better. It's the financial capital of the world ffs.

[plinko]

Is the Empire State Building turned 90 degrees in rendering #7?

[SkyHigher]

Originally Posted by plinko

Is the Empire State Building turned 90 degrees in rendering #7?

No it's just turning and sighing '100 years later and this is the best they can do for a building 1000ft plus...'

[NYguy]

Originally Posted by plinko

Is the Empire State Building turned 90 degrees in rendering #7?

It's just that the building looks so good, even the ESB had to turn around to take a second look. The Chrysler building is pissed.


BTW, this is the version Vornado is marketing right now. What ultimately gets built will depend on the tenant and tenant imput.


Some variations over the years...

[ChiND]

Vornado should build a residential tower between 33rd and 34th.

[ChiND]

https://www.wsj.com/real-estate/commerci...of-its-hottest-office-districts-f33bb5a0

Manhattan’s ‘Hellhole’ Is Now in One of Its Hottest Office Districts
The Penn Station neighborhood, known for dirty streets and claustrophobic train station, attracting blue-chip office tenants
By Peter Grant

May 12, 2026 5:30 am ET


R. Levin/WSJ

[chris08876]

Area needs a street overhaul or beautification. I feel that would aid. Lots of potential. I suspect as we see more activity and movement in general, the city is going to push for cleaning the area up. Perception is king. They need to do that on 8th Ave on a side note.

[ChiND]

Originally Posted by chris08876

Area needs a street overhaul or beautification. I feel that would aid. Lots of potential. I suspect as we see more activity and movement in general, the city is going to push for cleaning the area up. Perception is king. They need to do that on 8th Ave on a side note.

I agree, Chris.

[NYguy]

Originally Posted by chris08876

Area needs a street overhaul or beautification. I feel that would aid. Lots of potential. I suspect as we see more activity and movement in general, the city is going to push for cleaning the area up. Perception is king. They need to do that on 8th Ave on a side note.

What it really needs is better office stock. Though the older buildings have managed to hold on to tenants, the newer or upgraded towers (like 1 and 2 Penn) show if you build it, they will come. The streets around the Hudson Yards are still a virtual wasteland, as that area is a work in progress. Yet those new buildings are always full. The area around the busiest train station in the country should be as dense as the area around Grand Central. Hudson Yards has the lead right now, but that’s guickly being built out. The Penn District is inevitable.

[NYguy]

https://www.wsj.com/real-estate/commerci...of-its-hottest-office-districts-f33bb5a0

Manhattan’s ‘Hellhole’ Is Now in One of Its Hottest Office Districts





By Peter Grant
May 12, 2026





https://x.com/DailyREITBeat/status/2054172388489585087

The Death of the Office? Not in the Penn District

The transformation of Manhattan’s Penn District from a "hell hole" to a premier office hub is a masterclass in transit-oriented development.

🚀 The Penn District’s Power Move: The neighborhood surrounding Penn Station is emerging as one of the hottest office markets in NYC, proving that proximity to transit is the ultimate "flight to quality" driver.

📈 High Demand & Premium Rents:
$VNO
Vornado Realty Trust’s $1.2 billion redevelopment is seeing rents hit $130 per square foot, significantly outperforming initial projections of $95–$100.

🏢 Major Tenant Wins: Blue-chip companies and high-growth brands like Robinhood Markets, Major League Soccer, and Dick’s Sporting Goods are flocking to the district.


🚆 Transit is King: Robinhood recently tripled its footprint (moving from 45k to 120k sq. ft.) specifically to give employees easier access to regional transportation lines.

🏙️ Market Dominance: Along with Hudson Yards and Manhattan West, this district captured nearly 25% of all NYC office relocations between 2023 and 2025.

.....The Takeaway: While the "amenity wars" continue, the Penn District proves that world-class infrastructure combined with "trophy" asset upgrades can still command a massive premium in a hybrid-work world.

[NYguy]

https://www.ourtownny.com/news/who-is-go...illion-rebuild-of-penn-station-EC5895251

The plan now being considered by the Trump Administration will be to earmark city property taxes from surrounding real estate developments and funnel it directly to pay down the tab on the massive rebuilding project.


Michael Oreskes
30 May 2026

The Trump administration has revived Andrew Cuomo’s plan to use payments from real estate development around Penn Station to help fund the rebuilding of the station itself.

“PILOTS are on the table,” reported the Manhattan Borough President, Brad Hoylman-Sigal, using the acronym for payments-in-lieu-of-taxes, a system that diverts city property taxes to a specified purpose, such as rebuilding the station.

Officials familiar with the Penn project said that the main new construction envisioned outside the station would be a luxury office tower that Vornado has long wanted to build. The tower would rise on the site of the Pennsylvania Hotel, which Vornado demolished in 2023.

When he was governor, Andrew Cuomo proposed what became known as the General Project Plan, a massive redevelopment of the area around Penn Station, including the construction of up to ten large office towers. The developers would then have made payments, in lieu of property taxes, to help fund the rebuilding of the station.

The project generated intense community resistance, but ultimately stalled, not over the neighborhood blow back, but because of the COVID induced real estate slump which undermined the profitability of new office space. But that lull seems to have been temporary and luxury office space in New York is now going at record prices.

The GPP also included plans to expand train service by demolishing the block south of the station. Gov. Kathy Hochul has left the GPP in place but said she would not countenance destruction of a neighborhood. Officials said the new Penn Station plan leaves the block to the south intact.

Vornado Realty Trust is the largest landowner around Penn Station and would have built several of the office towers envisioned in the GPP. One of those towers is the one on the Hotel Pennsylvania site.

Vornado is now a partner in the consortium designated the other day by The Trump Administration as the Master Developer of the new Penn Station.

Officials said the main role Vornado will play in the Master Developer consortium is as manager of expanded retail offerings inside the station, something it has developed considerable expertise in managing both retail spaces in Moynihan Train Hall and the Long Island Railroads concourse on the north side of Penn Station.

As for PILOT payments from Vornado from the new office tower it wants to build, those could be collected under the authority of the existing GPP if Governor Hochul agreed.

Amtrak does not have authority to collect such payments directly, although a house committee recently approved legislation that would give Amtrak the power to do just that at redevelopment projects around the country.

The legislation was moved forward by a bipartisan vote 64 to 1 over the objections of Congressman Jerry Nadler. He is one of the elected officials who joined Hoylman-Sigal in complaining about how Amtrak was managing the Penn Station project.

[giantSwan]

Better design but this needs to be way taller near Penn station (and a pending 8 bil redevelopment)

[NYguy]

https://www.westsidespirit.com/news/manh...trump-backed-penn-station-plan-JJ5920685


Michael Oreskes
07 Jun 2026

...Straus News reported last week that Penn Transformation’s plan envisions Vornado building a luxury office tower across Seventh Avenue from Penn Station and then making payments in lieu of taxes to help defray the costs of rebuilding the station. The elected officials noted in their letter that legislation to allow Amtrak to collect such payments was advancing in congress over Rep. Nadler’s objections.

The legislation, the officials noted, “would grant Amtrak sweeping new authority over the redevelopment of Penn Station and other federally connected rail stations—authority that directly undermines local control, local decision making, and the ability of New York City and State to protect their communities and their taxpayers.

[ChiND]

If RXR is finding it hard to finance its tower, Vornado is never going to finance this. Also, I don’t see a tenant paying $300/sf in this dump. If the government is counting on payments from Vornado derived from this hypothetical tower to finance Penn, then the money simply won’t be there.

Further, the Penn Station stabbing by an emotionally disturbed homeless person yesterday underscores the vile character of this area.


Flickr


This is the dump that Vornado wanted. They were oblivious to the maxim: “Watch what you wish for.”





Loopnet

[NYguy]

https://www.ourtownny.com/news/new-gimbe...help-fund-penn-station-rebuild-GN5942484

New Gimbels’ Passage under Lux Tower To Help Fund Penn Station Rebuild
The redevelopment of Penn Station has an estimated price tag of at least $7 billion and Amtrak doesn’t have anywhere near full funding. But developers are looking at income generating ideas, including a reopened Gimbels tunnel with retail outlets.



A passageway from the now-defunct department store Gimbels ( Photo: Foster + Partners )






Michael Oreskes
13 Jun 2026

Amtrak is still several billion dollars short of identifying all the money it needs to transform Penn Station into the world class transit hub depicted in the architectural renderings it has rolled out.

“I’ll be looking for funding from myriad sources,” said Amtrak’s man-in-charge of the project, Andy Byford, who has won accolades from many quarters for even getting the project to this stage.

Byford said he would be asking New York State, New York City and New Jersey all to kick in, something Gov. Kathy Hochul says she will not do after the Trump administration took the project away from New York’s MTA last year.

He also revealed one of the new sources of commercial revenue that would help defray costs: the recreation of the so-called Gimbels Passageway that connects Penn Station underground to the Herald Square subways and PATH. The chain’s flagship store closed in September, 1986 and with it the passageway.

“I would remind everyone that the previous attempts to transform Penn Station foundered because they didn’t have the funding that was necessary,” Byford told a news conference at which he unveiled the new design and the private partners who will build it with him. “The difference this time, the game changer, is we have the federal government rock solid behind this.”

Byford also said the project would include commercial development outside of Penn Station to help generate revenue, a notion originally advanced by Andrew Cuomo when he was Governor

One of these envisioned projects is a luxury office tower Vornado Realty Trust wants to build on the site of the former Pennsylvania Hotel across Seventh Avenue from Penn Station. Vornado would make payments in lieu of taxes on the new tower to help fund the reconstruction of the station, essentially local revenue diverted to the Penn project.

At their news conference, Penn Transformation partners revealed one of the benefits that would come with Vornado’s new office tower: the recreation of the Gimbels’ Passageway, an 800-foot tunnel under 33rd street that once upon-a-time included shop windows and entrances to the now defunct Gimbels Department store.

The passageway was opened in 1920 and closed in 1986 because of crime and disrepair. Officials said the original tunnel is too narrow and decayed to simply reopen. Instead, they plan to build a wider passage in the foundation of the new office tower. The office construction is a separate project and not part of the cost of the station. But officials hope to proceed in tandem.

Vornado Realty Trust, which owns the site of the Pennsylvania Hotel, had proposed to reopen the passageway in 2010 as part of its bid to build the massive office tower on the site. Vornado tore down the hotel but still has not built the office tower.

An architect’s rendering of the new passageway showed a gleaming corridor with coffee shops and high-end stores, a bit like the basement level of Rockefeller Center.

Vornado, which already operates the shops and restaurants in Penn Station, is a partner in Penn Transformation Partners.

Penn Transformation Partners was the winner in a three-way contest to be the Master Developer.

“There were three good bids,” Byford explained. “But this is without question the best technical design. It also had the most credibility in terms of its constructability and in terms of its affordability. The actual financial model that we saw was the best overall.”

[ChiND]

If this is built before 175 Park, it would be apropos of King Lear (ie., a world turned totally upside down).


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