February 23, 2008
Moynihan Station Plans Off the Tracks
Less than two weeks after Gov. Spitzer publicly reaffirmed his commitment to going forward with plans to construct Moynihan Station despite a $1 billion funding shortfall, it looks like the matter may be out of his hands. The New York Times is reporting that the whole $14 billion project, which would involve building Moynihan Station at The Farley Post Office building and constructing a new Madison Square Garden on the site, is on the brink of total failure.
Numerous factors are proving insurmountable. The cost of constructing the station ballooned from an initial estimate of $1 billion to $3 billion before work could even begin. Representatives from Madison Square Garden didn't even show up for a recent planning meeting on the project, as it looks like the owners are going to go ahead with a multi-million dollar renovation of the existing arena rather than wait around for movement on a plan that just can't get started.
Budget crunches in the City and Albany have left boosters at least $1 billion short of funding to construct a new train station. A difficult financing environment are leaving a lot of ambitious projects in precarious positions. State Assemblyman Richard Brodsky commented to The New York Sun on a need for cash after a hearing earlier this month.
For Moynihan, he said, "They need over $2 billion and they have maybe around $1 billion. They need maybe $3 billion for the 7 line, they have maybe $2 billion. They are trying to figure out what to do on Hudson Yards and it looks like that is not coming together. With Javits, it looks like they are wasting $800 million on a plan that does nothing." "The West Side stuff is in really tough shape," Mr. Brodsky said in an interview yesterday, following the hearing.The Empire Development Corp. hoped to begin construction on Moynihan station in the fall of 2006. Any hope of regaining a train station even close to the grandeur of the old Penn Station, which was demolished to make way for the current Madison Square Garden arena, is fading quickly.
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It was an OK plan..renovate the Farley PO as an above-ground Penn... until they added....oh, a new MSG and a couple of new Empire State Buildings.
What hubris. And a predictable finish.
www.forgotten-ny.com
There are no words to adequately express how unsurprised by all of this I am. But then, as a LIRR commuter, it's not like I'd ever reap the benefits anyway...
Plan's not necessarily completely over. First of all: Madison Square Garden was not always the center of the Moynihan plan to begin with. It only became the center when the Dolans barged in with their idea of moving Madison Square Garden. That's when then-Governor Pataki decided to delay Moynihan Station in favor of making it bigger and more grandiose. Second of all: Incrementalism is the key. If construction costs on something all at once are prohibitive, then stretch out the construction time of the project so that part gets built in one year, another part the next year, and a third part the year after that. It would be slow but steady construction, rather than megaproject construction, but the end result would be mighty big.
Third of all: don't just rely on the government and the Dolans. Bring in commercial retailers and private businesses from all over the place, write up a central plan of guidelines, and allow each "player" in the project to build part of the new station (or to pay for the construction costs of part of the new station). Design it in such a way that the subtraction of part of the station will not cause the rest to be redrawn or started from a blank page. (In other words, design "fallback" plans in case one partner or another withdraws, and design "expansion" plans in case of a new partner emerging.)
None of this should have come as a surprise. The post office project has ballooned way out of proportion and was never meant to be on this scale.
They threatened demolition of the surrounding property because of this fiasco of a project. Why? So a few more big real estate developers, can make a few more bucks? Lets be real now. The face of the city is changing before our eyes, if we continue to let the city and the developers change the scope of the city projects there will be nothing left.
Recently the LPC denied the request to preserve a piece of NYC history. Their reasoning was more then likely politically and monetarily motivated.
Rising cost of materials, corrupted unions, & feckless city and state bureaucrats. Now that's what I call an anti-trifecta!
Makes you wonder how Nelson and David Rockefeller could get the World Trade Center built and then set up construction of Battery Park City. On the landfill poured on the Hudson from the tower's excavation!
Say what you will, but Battery Park City is a triumph and, in complexity, dwarfs anything we are trying to do today.
The Rockefellers didn't think in terms of buildings, but of "centers" and "cities". Our present politicians are mental midgets when it come to thinking of this stuff.
attempting to redeem ourselves for destroying mckim mead & white's masterpiece, penn station, by destroying another mckim mead & white masterpiece is fairly absurd. it is tragic that we destroyed the original penn station, it would be tragic if we also destroyed their post office. if we really want to build a new railway station, lets build it over the west side railyards, where we can build without destroying another city landmark.