Gothamist: Billion Dollar West Side Rail Yards Deal Collapses

Snoopy

Fri, 09 May 2008 11:49:45 -0500

"The cause of the impasse was Tishman Speyer's attempt to change a central deal term in an effort to postpone the closing on the Eastern Yard until the Western Yard was satisfactorily re-zoned." Would any of you go into a deal which might not work for you and was dependent on the city to come through within a workable time frame?

aksia

Fri, 09 May 2008 11:44:51 -0500

too bad, this would have been a nice public space to snack/lunch at...

buyerb

Fri, 09 May 2008 10:23:33 -0500

yes, i dont want to live in dubai

zodak

Fri, 09 May 2008 10:13:30 -0500

a new fail pic to add to my collection! nice job jen! ^_^

Ph

Fri, 09 May 2008 09:50:45 -0500

All of these developers floated these ideas back when everyone thought that the economy wasn't going to go south. Its going to be a long cold winter for a lot of people for the next few years. Not everyone got paid like a Wall Street hedge fund manager. In the case of the public buildings like the train station, that's just a question of economics too. There's no way the city government could come up with that kind of money without raising your taxes or getting kickback from the state and feds, which will not happen. No money = no project.

Tim N.

Fri, 09 May 2008 09:44:05 -0500

Bloomberg is pretty good at getting beat up by Shel Silver and kissing developer's asses. Total abdication of leadership. Developers knew there was money to be made, with some real leadership we could have had responsible development (you know, the kind that doesn't end with people and small businesses in the street) and at least some of these projects would have gotten done. Hell of a legacy, Mr. Mayor. At least we can't smoke in bars anymore.

thefacts

Fri, 09 May 2008 09:41:34 -0500

Also: Columbus Village on an extended stall as well as Trump SoHo sitting idle for months. And: the Fulton Street transit hub seriously downsized.

Think twice

Fri, 09 May 2008 08:58:29 -0500

As for the Hudson Yards specifically: If I were Tishman-Speyer, I too would run out of the room with my money in hand if, for one second, I saw the MTA sitting on it's hands about the 7 train extension. Sooo feckless.

Think twice

Fri, 09 May 2008 08:53:11 -0500

Already or eventually add to the list: No Cross-Harbor Rail tunnel No expanded Javits Center No East-Side Access Citifield and Yankee Stadium are almost done, which means the public sector is a sack of shit. God almighty it'll take a complete collapse of infrastructure before this town will ever entertain the thought of selling or leasing off assets to more efficient operators.

kapusta

Fri, 09 May 2008 08:40:37 -0500

let me get this straight: the puppet government, "Mayor" Bloomberg, is "hoping to see development". in other words- not governing. the real government, banks and insurance companies (Tishman Speyer is just a middle man),is in a dispute with the independent junta MTA. gee, maybe the situation will escalate to actual violence.

blablanyc

Fri, 09 May 2008 07:36:10 -0500

It's not that New Yorkers don't think big, they think about their communities. The Hudson Yards development was hardly inviting.

Dan Dickinson

Fri, 09 May 2008 01:04:52 -0500

jchez, don't forget no congestion pricing, either. Bloomberg's legacy will be "No".

jchez

Fri, 09 May 2008 00:43:05 -0500

Oh, I forgot. No new Penn Station.

Kevin Walsh

Fri, 09 May 2008 00:22:55 -0500

Agreed; all the projects save Atlantic Yards are worthy ones, but costs have risen so much that large projects are no longer possible. www.forgotten-ny.com

jchez

Fri, 09 May 2008 00:00:51 -0500

So, no West Side Yards, no stadium, no Westway, no 2nd ave subway, possibly no Brooklyn yard, the WTC is still a hole and will never look like the original "contest winning" design. For good or ill, this city has decided to stop thinking big.

sonyactivision

Thu, 08 May 2008 23:32:14 -0500

No Olympics! No Shitty towers! This site is like Bloomberg kryptonite! "....Go ahead, mayor,... touch it again!"

jenspellnogood

Thu, 08 May 2008 23:28:47 -0500

could have been a stadium already, with a super bowl and an olympics on the way.

babyhitler

Thu, 08 May 2008 22:54:01 -0500

develop don't destroy. It's more like don't develop and don't do shit in this weakass economy. Fuck this shit!

jack9

Thu, 08 May 2008 22:42:28 -0500

"But CBS 2 points out the Hudson Yards dream is a complicated one, what with the developer needing to spend approximately $2 billion to build a platform over the yards and questoins about whether the MTA would really build a subway extension."

Bubba

Thu, 08 May 2008 22:29:54 -0500

good

Spiny

Thu, 08 May 2008 22:26:54 -0500

Oh, thank God. Those proposed buildings were UGLY AS SIN.