Penn Station Remake Could Be Crown Jewel Of Vornado's Midtown Empire If Plans Are Accepted
Vornado is doubling down on its Midtown West portfolio, submitting plans to redevelop the James A. Farley Post Office Building in a JV with the Related Cos and Skanska, and for an overhaul of Penn Station it hopes to carry out alone.
That makes sense for the REIT, as it owns over 9M SF around Penn Station, an area it refers to as its “big kahuna,” The Real Deal reports.
Penn Station is a prime piece of NYC real estate, but the project is likely to be a slog. All the moving parts involved and the necessity of keeping Penn Station open during the construction are likely to make it as difficult as rebuilding the WTC, an architect tells TRD.
Nonetheless, Vornado apparently thinks the difficulty will be worth it.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo has long been eager to get a redevelopment of Penn Station underway, and Related and Vornado started on a similar proposal by then-Gov. George Pataki back in 2005, before it got derailed.
That particular experience, along with Vornado’s long involvement with the surrounding area, will likely give it a leg up on competitors who also submitted bids for the project.
Vornado’s already moving forward with a major project right across the street from Penn Station: its overhaul of Two Penn Plaza, which will soon feature a facade that splays out at the bottom in a throwback to Marilyn Monroe’s famous scene in The Seven Year Itch. [TRD]
