Quote:
Originally Posted by JSsocal
No.
The massive proposal a couple years ago was a pipe dream. Part of that scenario would involve moving the garden to the Moynihan, and turning the Garden into the station, as well as an office building. However, they are choosing to turn Moynihan into Penn station, and so the owners of MSG are simply renovating the garden.
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You clearly misunderstood the plan. The current plan of Moynihan has always been in place. The move of MSG was planned to the back side - or 9th Avenue end of the Farley building, where a skyscraper or two were originally planned to go. Those development rights are now shifting accross the street to the 1 Penn Plaza block.
The reason the developers needed to get MSG out of the way was to unlock the millions of square feet of development rights that would have led to the construction of the towers. This part of the development was being handled by Related, which planned a "Time Warner Center on a much larger scale". Nothing pipe dream about it. But MSG (the Dolans) got into a battle with preservationists about just what type of changes and signage would be allowed at Farley, which was followed by another fight with the city. MSG decided to stay put (with the renovation/rebuilding). Meanwhile, the funding for Moynihan itself wasn't complete and everything came to a halt as New York went through a string of governors.
For now at least, things are moving in the direction of getting the station - or more accurately, the expansion, built.
http://www.observer.com/2010/real-es...ey-state-board
Moynihan Station Approved by Key State Board
By Eliot Brown
July 21, 2010
Quote:
Plans for an expanded Penn Station received a boost today as the Public Authorities Control Board—a state-run board that previously blocked a different version of the project—approved a first phase for the plan, known as Moynihan Station.
With each additional approval (of which there are many), it's actually looking like the project, which would eventually move Amtrak into the Corinthian column-lined Farley Post Office across Eighth Avenue, will see the start of construction.
Back in 2006, the PACB, which is controlled jointly by the governor and the leaders of the state Senate and Assembly, blocked Governor Pataki's plans for the project, as Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver stood in the way of the plan. Complete with the project's narrative of ever-overreaching visions, the incoming Governor Spitzer then championed a larger version that involved moving Madison Square Garden to the post office, which more than a year later fell apart, due largely to the tremendous level of complication involved. (In retrospect, this plan approved today isn't all that different from what the PACB was being asked to approve three-and-a-half years ago. Of course, that was before tens of millions of additional spending on consultants, borrowing costs, etc.)
...In the past year, state officials reworked the plan to be able to construct the project in chunks, as opposed to the prior strategy of waiting until all the various moving pieces fell into place. Should construction actually begin, it will be in large part due to this new strategy.
...Still on the table, in theory: the sale of at least 1 million square feet of air rights over the Farley Building to a venture of developers Vornado and Related, which would build a tower across the street next to 1 Penn Plaza. (That, too, would need further approvals.)
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