NEW YORK CITY—Governor Andrew Cuomo unveiled Wednesday a comprehensive plan to transform Penn Station and the James A. Farley Post Office into a world-class transportation hub. The project, known as the Empire Station Complex, will feature significant passenger improvements, including first-class amenities, natural light, increased train capacity and decreased congestion, and improved signage to dramatically enhance the travel experience. Expected to cost $3 billion, the project will be expedited by a public-private partnership in order to break ground this year and complete substantial construction within the next three years.
In its current form, the station is designed to accommodate 200,000 daily passengers. In practice, it serves more than 650,000 passengers daily and contends with pedestrian congestion and outdated facilities.
"Penn Station is the heart of New York's economy and transportation network, but it has been outdated, overcrowded, and unworthy of the Empire State for far too long," declares Cuomo. "We want to build Penn Station to be better than it ever was, and that is exactly what we are going to do. This proposal will fundamentally transform Penn Station for the 21st century, and we are excited to move forward with the project in the days to come."
As part of the Governor's proposal, the Farley Post Office, which sits across 8th Avenue from Penn Station, will be redeveloped into a state-of-the-art train hall for Amtrak with services for passengers of the Long Island Rail Road, New Jersey Transit and the new Air Train to LaGuardia Airport.
The train hall will connect to Penn Station via an underground pedestrian concourse, and increase the station's size by 50%. At 210,000 square feet, the train hall will be roughly equivalent in size to the main room at Grand Central Terminal. The new facility will offer more concourse and circulation space, include retail space and modern amenities such as Wi-Fi and digital ticketing, and feature 30 new escalators, elevators and stairs to speed passenger flow.
For the public-private partnership, solicitations to developers will be issued by the state (which owns the Farley Post Office) and Amtrak (which owns Penn Station) this week. Responses are due in 90 days.
The construction cost is expected to be in excess of $3 billion, including $2 billion to redevelop Farley and Penn into a world-class transportation hub and at least $1 billion for ancillary retail and commercial developments between 7th and 9th avenues. Government sources, including USDOT, Port Authority and Amtrak, will provide $325 million. Nearly all of the work will be funded by private investment in exchange for an interest in the long-term revenue stream generated by the retail and commercial rents.
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Rayna Katz
Rayna Katz is a seasoned business journalist whose extensive experience includes coverage of the lodging sector, travel and the culinary space. She was most recently content director for a business-to-business publisher, overseeing four publications. While at Meeting News, a travel trade publication, she received a Best Reporting award for a story on meeting cancellations in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina.
