JLL To Manage $500M MSG Renovation Project

NEW YORK CITY-Madison Square Garden has secured Jones Lang LaSalle, as the overall project manager for the arena’s renovation project, slated to begin construction in spring 2009. As project manager, JLL will work with the Garden to oversee all aspects of the renovation, from managing related personnel to establishing and managing the project’s timeline, to creation of the overall budget and financial controls, to coordinating the activities of several dozen consultants and construction partners over the renovation period.

MSG Concourse (before)

The Madison Square Garden renovation is a $500 million construction project that will utilize existing space on the Garden’s current footprint. The renovation, which is being paid for in its entirety by MSG, is scheduled to be completed in time for the 2011-2012 seasons. The Garden will continue to be operational during the renovation period. Brisbin Brook Beynon is the project’s architect.

MSG has gone back and forth with the feasibility of a renovation project for some time now, Richard Jantz, SVP leading JLL’s team, tells GlobeSt.com.

MSG Concourse (after)

In 2004, GlobeSt.com reported that the $300 million plan, at the time, would include changes all over the arena to the concourses, suites, locker rooms and staging areas, and although Jantz says that some of the amenity changes are the same, it is a different project. He explains that JLL was hired over three years ago and the firm has been a consistent advisor to the Garden, “but we are now project managing a project that’s actually going to happen,” he says.

Jantz tells GlobeSt.com that JLL’s role before was more of an advisory role, but now they are fully retained. He notes that this renovation project is different because “it keeps the original footprint of the building.” He notes that JLL has assembled a team of about five experts to facilitate the project and lead the effort and they will largely be based at MSG. The team will work closely with Madison Square Garden’s architects, facilities group, and all construction-related personnel to ensure that the arena will remain operational during all aspects of the phased construction project.

MSG Main Entrance (before)

The renovation is expected to enhance all customer-related areas, including a redesigned 7th Avenue entrance; new seats, with significantly better sightlines; new, wider and more spacious public concourses open to the arena bowl, with spectacular views to the city; state-of-the-art lighting, sound and LED video systems in HDTV; new food and beverage options and a greater selection in all hospitality areas; 68 new mid-level suites that are 50% larger than current suites and half the distance to events; 20 new floor-level suites that are on the same level as the playing surface and provide direct access to the best seats in the house; improved dressing rooms, locker rooms, green rooms and production offices for athletes and performers; a new fan party deck in the upper level with expanded and improved hospitality areas that replace the existing upper suites; many additional new restrooms, with 50% more dedicated space and restoration of MSG’s world famous ceiling.

MSG Main Entrance (after)

Joel Fisher, EVP of MSG Sports and Arena Renovation, Madison Square Garden, says in a prepared statement that “we have an aggressive timeline for completion of the renovation project–with a target opening in time for the 2011-2012 seasons–and at the same time are committed to minimizing the construction’s impact on our customers. JLL’s planning and management will be crucial in allowing us to realize these objectives.”