NEW YORK | PA Bus Terminal Towers | 1,346 FT & 926 FT & FT| FLOORS

[NYguy]

Taking this from the bus terminal thread to discuss the proposed skyscrapers. It may or may not happen, but it's a proposal anyway.



https://nypost.com/2020/09/06/propos...l-underground/

Proposal could put the Port Authority Bus Terminal underground





By Steve Cuozzo
September 6, 2020

It’s a bury good way to get rid of the city’s most hated transit hub.

Many of the 250,000 commuters who use the Port Authority Bus Terminal on Eighth Avenue daily would love to see the ugly, inefficient facility disappear. An audacious replacement proposal submitted by a major engineering and design firm would give them their wish by moving it underground.

But the public never heard about it — until now.

The PA wants to replace the obsolete, overcrowded terminal, which former agency executive director Pat Foye gently calls “functionally obsolete.” Comic John Oliver more colorfully termed it “the single worst place on planet earth.”

The PA is considering three alternatives for either modernizing the terminal and putting an office tower on top of it, or partly moving it into the remote Javits Convention Center.

Now, The Post has exclusively obtained images of a plan by global infrastructure giant AECOM and architectural firm STV to bury the terminal underground in a “soaring public space” renamed Hudson Terminal Market with stores, cafes and connections to the No. 7 and Eighth Avenue subway lines.

A grand, glass roof would bring in sunlight. New tunnels near the Lincoln Tunnel entrance would bring buses directly into the subterranean terminal and eliminate the ugly tangle of overhead ramps. The block of West 41st Street between Eighth and Ninth avenues, which the terminal straddles, would be closed to create a “superblock” bounded by the avenues and by West 40th and 42nd streets for a landscaped public park and new office or apartment towers.

AECOM submitted its vision to the PA in 2019. The money-hemorrhaging agency nixed it for the other scenarios because they’d each cost an estimated $10 billion compared with $15 billion for the sunken-terminal plan.

But some analysts say AECOM’s plan could now become much cheaper thanks to a Trump administration initiative to stimulate new development.

Proponents say the project could be financed at little or no cost to the PA by tapping near-zero-interest federal loans to spur development as part of recovery from the COVID-19 crisis.

Insiders said AECOM’s task force for the terminal project was led by former PA executive director Christopher Ward, who was the design company’s New York-area CEO until he left the firm in 2018. Ward, who was at the PA from 2008-2011, rescued the agency’s stalled World Trade Center redevelopment project and was credited with breaking a stubborn logjam.

The terminal plan involves what real-estate professionals call “a million moving parts.” Among other things, it would require a city-state development agency to mastermind the project for the PA.

A “big box” to contain the new bus terminal and passenger amenities would first be built beneath the current terminal. It would be installed before the above-ground building is demolished.

The city, which owns the land, and the PA could profit down the line by selling air rights to developers who would build on parts of the superblock to be determined. The site is zoned for about six million square feet of development without needing public review.

New towers there would effectively extend the Times Square district west beyond its current boundary of Eighth Avenue.

[NYguy]

Not really a new plan...we've seen this model before.

[Crawford]

The terminal, in its current location, will eventually have to go. It either has to be completely buried or moved over by Javits.

[NYguy]

This particular idea is something I was talking about for site 2 of the Empire Station redevelopment, where there are two large towers planned around and over an open plaza. I think that space needs to be more than just an open plaza, Something with a glass skylight to the station below would be nice. If something like this were built on the current PA terminal site, it would be a HUGE improvement, and would go a long way toward connecting the Hudson Yards area with the extended Midtown area of Times Square. Not to mention eliminating the ugly ramps to the terminal.









https://www.6sqft.com/port-authority...-bus-terminal/

[chris08876]

This sounds and looks insanely expensive. Whatever the projected cost is, double it with the PA running things.

The PA wants to replace the obsolete, overcrowded terminal, which former agency executive director Pat Foye gently calls “functionally obsolete.” Comic John Oliver more colorfully termed it “the single worst place on planet earth.”

It's like Dawn of the Dead there, very true.

Lots of potential for this site, I just hope its managed right if something does come to fruition.

[NYguy]

Originally Posted by chris08876

This sounds and looks insanely expensive. Whatever the projected cost is, double it with the PA running things.

All of those plans are expensive, but this was the most expensive. The only reason it's come up now is because of the current crisis. But whatever version of the new terminal takes shape, don't expect everyone to be happy. There will be a chorus of "why?".

The money-hemorrhaging agency nixed it for the other scenarios because they’d each cost an estimated $10 billion compared with $15 billion for the sunken-terminal plan.

Proponents say the project could be financed at little or no cost to the PA by tapping near-zero-interest federal loans to spur development as part of recovery from the COVID-19 crisis.

• Video Link

[Sky88]

Another image of the project.

[NYguy]

^ A unified Midtown.

[NYguy]

https://therealdeal.com/2020/10/12/p...-land-to-sell/

Port Authority, out $3B, has waterfront land to sell
Agency’s revenue crushed by Covid as it pursued projects costing billions

TRD New York
October 12, 2020

...The executive director also discussed office leasing at the World Trade Center (“The big picture is it’s going extraordinarily well”) and rebuilding the Port Authority Bus Terminal (“We will publish our new proposal well before the end of the year”).

The bus terminal, on Eighth Avenue and West 42nd Street, will involve a revenue-generating private component to help cover the cost, which could exceed $10 billion. “Infrastructure is expensive,” Cotton said. “But we need to get on with it.”

[NYguy]

This rendering released by the governor doesn't seem to indicate any open space. Sure it's probably not a final design, but it's location is where the open plaza was depicted...

[NYguy]

https://www.politico.com/states/new-...ucture-1358778

Plans call for new Port Authority bus terminal to be built atop existing structure


By SAMANTHA MALDONADO
01/20/2021

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey will build a new bus terminal atop the existing structure in Midtown Manhattan and incorporate on-site bus parking and infrastructure for electric buses, according to a New Jersey lawmaker who has been briefed on the plan.

“They’re not designing a bus terminal to accommodate what we see today, but what we anticipate in the future,” state Senate Majority Leader Loretta Weinberg told POLITICO Wednesday afternoon.

The build-in-place approach, one of three main options the bi-state agency had considered in planning to replace the terminal, will allow buses to continue servicing the existing terminal during construction.

An internal document obtained by POLITICO from December 2020 details the process of the construction work and the footprint the project will take. An included preliminary timeline estimates that construction will begin in 2024. A temporary facility will open in 2028, and the permanent facility will open in 2031.

The new terminal will also include off-street parking for buses.

“That helps the people in that geographic area to not have a lot of local buses on the street they don’t need,” Weinberg said, adding that the parking availability would put an end to buses that service New Jersey-to-New York routes driving around empty between trips.

[NYguy]

Sounds like they will go with option 3...

[C.]

Originally Posted by NYguy

Sounds like they will go with option 3...

Pity. I was a huge fan of option 3 since it would open up a lot of free space and allow for some reconfiguration of the access routes\ramps. It also would have been an engineering marvel.

[Crawford]

Option 3 does remove the ramps. They're selling the air rights above the PA-owned land. This should mean a phalanx of new towers from 42nd & 8th, heading westward.

$10 billion for a bus terminal. Sounds crazy, but undoubtedly much, much cheaper than the Empire State complex will end up costing.

And per NYT, there will be four towers. One giant office tower directly above the new terminal, and three towers to the south and west.

[NYguy]

Update in the proposal...



‘Notorious’ Port Authority Bus Terminal May Get a $10 Billion Overhaul
After years of study and debate, there is finally a proposal to rebuild the Midtown Manhattan eyesore from the ground up


By Patrick McGeehan and Winnie Hu
Jan. 21, 2021

... the agency that operates the bus terminal — the busiest in the country — has settled on a final proposal for transforming it into a 21st-century transit hub capable of handling many more buses.

The project’s announcement on Thursday follows the opening on Jan. 1 of the Moynihan Train Hall, a majestic, light-filled terminus meant to alleviate overcrowding and offer a far more appealing gateway to New York than Pennsylvania Station, which is arguably the most miserable train hub in the United States.

The bus terminal plan, which has been in the works for more than seven contentious years, would cost as much as $10 billion and could take a decade to complete. It comes amid a steep decline in the financial condition of the agency, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, that operates the terminal.

The agency hopes to get help in financing the project by selling rights to put a commercial tower on top of the expanded terminal and build three other high-rises nearby.

Mr. Cotton said it was too soon to provide a reliable estimate of the project’s cost, which has been projected in the past at $7.5 billion to $10 billion. The proposal, which he called “ingenious,” must still get through environmental reviews before it can compete for any federal funding. He said the agency had a “10-year time frame” for completing the project.

An earlier proposal had caused an uproar among community leaders because it suggested the liberal use of eminent domain powers to relocate the terminal. But the revised plan is less likely to rile up the terminal’s neighbors in the Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood because it does not include the taking of any private property.

Instead, they would rebuild and enlarge the existing bus terminal while keeping it open for travelers.

The new proposal also addresses a constant complaint of Manhattan residents: the steady stream of intercity buses that pick up and drop passengers at various curbsides, snarling traffic and blocking sidewalks. The plan calls for building a depot west of the main terminal that could accommodate those buses and provide storage for others.

... Mr. Wright said replacing the terminal is a necessity no matter how much it costs because of the integral role it plays in the city’s daily commute. More than 250,000 people passed through it on a typical weekday before the pandemic, according to the Port Authority. Since March, that traffic has dropped by more than 65 percent.

“New York ceases to exist without its connections to the surrounding communities and the work force,” Mr. Wright said. “Without it, the city enters into a period of decline.”

[Busy Bee]

Here's hoping a combined 7 train/Metro-North station is built under that western most parcel owned by the PA before the opportunity is squandered forever.

[NYguy]

https://nypost.com/2021/01/21/port-a...minal-by-2031/

The new multi-billion dollar facility will be built mostly over the footprint of the 70-year-old existing terminal, with some expansion onto adjacent Port Authority properties.

“It builds on top of the existing bus terminal, but it also leverages additional space by moving the ramps from where they’re currently located all the way to the west of 10th Avenue,” Cotton told reporters.

The terminal’s existing ramps, which stretch multiple blocks between 41st and 38th streets, will be replaced with an bus storage building and two new public parks.

[chris08876]

Once the crowds and tourists really return in masses to the city, this is going to be traffic and pedestrian hell with such a grandiose construction scope. I could imagine the delays being insane traffic wise.

[NYguy]

More information on the plan...



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A little more on the towers...




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[Crawford]

So about 8.2 million square feet of private development in four towers, and the bus terminal complex will be nearly 3 million square feet.

This will be an enormous redevelopment. Finally we have a fix to the West Side bus congestion and the crappy terminal and ramps.