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Originally Posted by citybooster
Just happy with the overall Vornado plan, especially doing as good a job as practically can be done to make Penn Station at least welcoming and open to light, not a sad rathole undeserving of being New York City's biggest transportation hub.
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Agreed. Moynihan is well underway, and part 2 of the plan is to get the current Penn in a state to match it in some sense. It would be an insult to leave it as is.
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Originally Posted by Amanita
If they were planning a reclad wouldn't they have mentioned it?
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I don't know that they didn't. I just posted what was in that particular article, which probably didn't even mention everything.
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Originally Posted by chefforbz
I'm trying to figure out the relationship between what Vornado has just released in the last few days and what Cuomo has proposed for the area. Are these two forces working together against the Mayor to finally create an environment where Vornado can move forward or is Cuomo pushing Vornado to finally deal with the lack of progress in that neighborhood? Or is it just coincidence that Roth made public these thoughts a few days after the Cuomo initiative?
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I don't think it's coincidence. The proposals that we've seen (or at least heard about) are a response to Cuomo's proposal last year which saw developers respond. We've only seen the JDS proposal, but because Vornado owns most of the land in the area, it was limited in scope how much they could do. There's no doubt that Vornado wants in on that Hudson Yards and now Midtown East action. They may feel an oppurtunity has passed by with 15 Penn (actually the first west side tower to get a tenant) and don't want to be left behind again.
Cuomo, meanwhile, wants yet another development to leave behind as his legacy. Guiliani (to some degree) got Times Square redeveloped, Bloomberg got the West Side, de Blasio got Midtown East passed, and now Cuomo wants to leave his mark on the city. He knows that it was the governor who got the WTC built, and wants some similar, grand proposal. The idea to work around the city was to speed things up a bit, as we know how things get bogged down. The mayor is also pro-development, but he can't override the city's process of approval. Vornado's demolishment of 2 Penn would be the key to finally unlocking those development rights from MSG. As far as the other blocks go, they would need an upzoning to get the type of large scale development we are seeing on the west side and midtown east. Hopefully we will hear more details on these plans soon.