January 8, 2015
Governor Andrew Cuomo announced Thursday that the State of New York will pursue a public-private partnership (P3) to redevelop Penn Station into a modern train terminal. In the press conference, Cuomo announced that he will propose “the biggest construction program in the state’s history” in this year’s State of the State address. It’s becoming clearer and clearer that Governor Cuomo is making construction one of his largest priorities for his second term.
The main parameters of Governor Cuomo’s redevelopment plan are as follows:
– The project will be delivered through a P3 in order to expedite the delivery.
– The goal is to deliver the $3 billion project in three years.
– The State and Federal Environmental review is already completed, which will help the project stay on schedule.
– Solicitations are being issued to developers this week, and are due back in 90 days.
– The project will include two different redevelopment areas; Penn Station ($1 billion) and the Farely Post Office ($2 billion):
The Penn Station potion of the project will widen existing corridors, reconfigure ticketing and waiting areas, improve connectivity between the lower levels and street level, bring natural light into the facility, improve signage, simplify navigation and reduce congestion. The plan also includes the expansion and upgrade of the retail offerings and passenger amenities on all levels of the station. The renderings for the project were included in the Governor’s press release and are available here.
The Farely Post Office will be redeveloped into a state-of-the-art train hall for Amtrak, the new train hall, with services for passengers of the Long Island Rail Road, New Jersey Transit and the new Air Train to LaGuardia Airport. At 210,000 square feet, the train hall will be roughly equivalent in size to the main room at Grand Central Terminal. Here are the renderings for this project.
The highly anticipated redevelopment of the station fits nicely into Governor Cuomo’s growing list of transit redevelopment projects that also include Laguardia Airport and the Tappan Zee Bridge; all of which have been or plan to be delivered through design-build. The project has received statements of support from Amtrack President and CEO Joseph Boardman, Senator Brad Hoylman, Senator Adriano Espaillat, and Assembly Member Richard Gottfried. Governor Cuomo’s full press release is available here.