NYC's Real West Side Story

NEW YORK CITY—The Far West Side has been called Manhattan’s last great development opportunity, yet for a while it looked as though the great public-private push westward had stalled indefinitely. Then-Gov. Eliot Spitzer scrapped plans for expanding the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center. Budgetary woes cast doubts on the timetable for extending the No. 7 subway line to Eleventh Avenue. Reports surfaced that the ambitious Moynihan Station project would cost far more than originally projected, and then the owners of Madison Square Garden jeopardized the project by announcing they would not relocate across Eighth Avenue. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority announced Tishman Speyer as the winning bidder for Hudson Yards, only to have the deal bog down in negotiations.

Less than a week after the Hudson Yards deal collapsed, MTA revealed a new one on essentially the same terms. The winning bidder this time was the Related Cos., which had pulled out of the previous round after its anchor tenant, News Corp., walked away. The May 19 agreement includes assurances that MTA will complete the extension of the No. 7 line by the time Hudson Yards is built out. It also gives the developer an option of suspending annual rent payments for up to two years if a lack of office tenants puts construction on hold.

THE REAL WEST SIDE STORY IS IN RENY DIGITAL

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From the vantage point of the current market, it seems likely that some of those rent payments would be suspended. At a May 20 press conference, Related chairman Stephen Ross acknowledged that there’s no anchor tenant to replace News Corp. Moreover, Hudson Yards faces competition for office tenants from Brookfield Properties’ five-million-sf Manhattan West , to be constructed a couple of blocks away from the Related/Goldman site.

Yet experts see Hudson Yards as a long-term project. “Related isn’t planning for this real estate market; they’re planning for the next one and the one after that,” says Bob Yaro, executive director of the Regional Plan Association, which has long advocated mixed-use development on the Far West Side.

However, Yaro and others point out that the 26-acre Hudson Yards project is only one component of transforming the largely industrial district. It may not even be the most important piece of the puzzle: some influential voices say the real catalyst for redeveloping the Far West Side is Moynihan Station.