No one knows for sure whether Madison Square Garden's decision to
renovate instead of relocate to the Farley Building isn't just the
ultimate bluff to try and leverage a sweeter deal from the state and
the project's developers. Sources familiar with the labyrinthine plan
to build a new Garden a block west and overhaul Penn Station, as well
as written reports, indicate that the stakeholders in the project
haven't given up hope that MSG can still be enticed back into
negotiations.
But still, right now that possibility appears bleak.
"I think MSG has gone through extensive planning for renovating in
place and making a modern facility so I don't know if you can get MSG
back to the table," Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver told
rew-online.com. So are we back to the Pataki plan to just build
Moynihan Station, an extension of Penn Station in the eastern side of
Farley? While transit advocates think that Moynihan is a worthy project
because it will increase the transit hub's capacity to handle its
already massive--and growing--flow of daily commuters, Silver didn't
seem ready to lend his support.
"The smaller plan doesn't service the mass transit needs of the
needs of the city," Silver said. "So the grander plan is certainly
deserving of Moynihan's memory and more desirable to New Yorkers.
Certainly at this time it's more difficult to achieve, it requires
close to a billion dollars in public commitment if not more."
It was of course Silver, via his hugely powerful vote on the Public
Authorities Control Board, who struck down the Moynihan plan near the
end of Pataki's term as governor in favor of the bigger overhaul
proposed by the project's developers, a partnership between Vornado and
the Related Companies.
Like Silver, most officials prefer a more thorough makeover of
Penn. But the question now appears to be how that more sweeping vision
can be reconciled with the new limitations imposed by MSG's apparent
decision to stay put. The developers and the state, while still trying
to entice MSG to move, are contemplating hybrid options between the
larger and smaller plan to realize a better Penn Station and build in
Farley while leaving MSG in place.
Among the components of the plan a source tell us is possibly
moving the theater that juts out from the Garden on Eighth Avenue and
relocating it to Farley.
That could allow a glass facade to be constructed in its place that
could let light shine down into what is now Amtrak Station--one of the
great things that relocating MSG would have allowed to an even greater
degree. A large train hall could then be carved out of the aged
looking, but high ceilinged space.
Another thing that the developers are said to be looking at to
sweeten the commercial value of a scaled-back plan is to build a large
office tower in the western portion of Farley, where they had wanted to
move MSG. Retail is also an option for that space.
Although the developers responded to and won a bid to build only
Moynihan Station, many sources have told rewonline.com that the
developers likely had a larger project in mind from the beginning.
More summaries about the Silver Still on Fence Over Moynihan Plan