NEW YORK CITY-The Bloomberg administration said Wednesday it’s applying for $3 million in federal TIGER II grants for a feasibility study on building a Tenth Avenue station for the No. 7 subway line extension. The move to possibly reinstate the subway stop, which was dropped from the line in 2008 after the Hudson Yards Development Corp. said the funding wasn’t there to build two stations, comes after months of lobbying by the Real Estate Board of New York and City Council Speaker Christine Quinn.
“We need engineers to confirm that it’s viable, but we’re confident we’ve found a way to keep the prospect of a future Tenth Avenue station alive without delaying the current extension,” Mayor Michael Bloomberg says in a statement. “Our priority has always been extending the train to the Hudson Yards area to help spur major commercial and residential growth there, and we’re on track to complete it by the end of 2013.”
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which is spending $2.1 billion on the 7 extension to Eleventh Avenue on Manhattan’s Far West Side, has stated that it cannot afford the additional $550 million that a second stop would cost to build. Bloomberg says “the city is in no position to step in and pay for a Tenth Avenue station,” but that “it will be good news if we can finish the current extension without closing off the possibility of it happening in the future.”
As reported in the Wall Street Journal, the proposed redesign would entail building a Tenth Avenue stop with two entrances and two separate platforms, one for eastbound trains and one for those continuing west to the line’s new terminus at Eleventh Avenue. This would allow the station to be built after the rest of the extension is completed, assuming that funds become available.
“We recognize that funding for the full project is a goal we will need to work on collaboratively in the months ahead,” says Mary Ann Tighe, REBNY Chairman and CEO of the New York tri-state region of CB Richard Ellis, in a release. “But without this action, and without this redesign, there would not even be hope that a station could be built.”
This past February, REBNY formed a coalition known as Build the Station to lobby for federal funds to give the 7 extension two stops west of Times Square. “The city should be applauded for doing its part in finding a way to finance $2 billion,” Tighe said at the time. “But spending $2 billion for one subway station instead of two is not making the most of the investment the city has made.”
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Paul Bubny
Paul Bubny is managing editor of Real Estate Forum and GlobeSt.com. He has been reporting on business since 1988 and on commercial real estate since 2007. He is based at ALM Real Estate Media Group's offices in New York City.
