MTA Board Approves Hudson Yards Deal

NEW YORK CITY-The Hudson Yards development deal reached by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and Related Cos. and Goldman Sachs earlier this week received unanimous approval at a special session of MTA’s board yesterday. The board’s action authorized MTA “to proceed with the agreement announced Monday between the MTA and Related Cos./Goldman Sachs to develop the air space over the MTA’s rail yards on Manhattan’s Far West Side,” according to a statement from MTA.

As GlobeSt.com reported on Monday, the deal is essentially the same as the one which had collapsed a week earlier, after MTA and Tishman Speyer reached an impasse over the Western Rail Yard, which still needs to go through the full rezoning process. At a news conference on Monday, Elliot G. Sander, MTA’s executive director, noted that the need to rezone the Western Rail Yard was not an issue for Related as it had been for Tishman, “so we were able to proceed at the point where we had left off.”

Stephen Ross, chairman of Related, said at Monday’s news conference that his company was so enthusiastic about a second chance at the Hudson Yards project that it stepped up to the plate even without an anchor tenant to replace News Corp., which walked away from the project 24 hours before final bids were due. “When we got a second opportunity, we didn’t waste any time,” Ross said. “We jumped on it.”