West Side Redevelopment Is a Hot Topic

NEW YORK CITY-According to the Regional Plan Association, which is organizing an April 16 assembly dealing with the West Side Development issue, the area represents “the region’s best opportunity to provide a new district that will accommodate growth in high-value office activities.” However, the need for office space will be a slowburn–developing in well more than a decade.

In February, the city created the Hudson Yards Infrastructure Corp., a not-for-profit designed to help with the financing of the massive project. City estimates peg the total costs of the infrastructure to be financed through 2012 to be $2.8 billion and a continued buildout is expected to follow through 2040. Key elements of the plan call for the expansion of the #7 subway line with major stops at 34th Street and 11th Avenue and 41st Street and 10th Avenue as well as the creation of a platform over the Eastern Rail Yards, from 30th & 33rd streets between 10th & 11th avenues, to create a six-acre park and to allow for development by private developers and cultural institutions. Other infrastructure improvements will include a new street system and parks.

The not-for-profit RPA, which has been in existence for more than 80 years, notes that transportation improvements will be vital to the entire project. “The need to modernize and expand transit capacity is a basic requirement for supporting new commercial and residential development throughout New York City and the metropolitan region,” it said in a report.