ESDC Document Outlines New Post Office Plan

A revised proposal to turn the James A. Farley Post Office in Manhattan into a train station includes a new Madison Square Garden, with options to disperse development rights over a new district formed around the station, according to a draft scoping document released by the Empire State Development Corp. yesterday. ESDC spokesman Errol Cockfield said that financing details would come after a final design was developed, but a person close to the planning said that municipal bond financing was possible. Cockfield said via e-mail: “Any tax-exempt bond financing would only be for the public side of the project.” The plan was put on hold last year when the New York Public Authorities Control Board turned the project down. At that time, the plan involved a mix of funds from the U.S. government, the state, New York City, the state’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, and tenant payments. The project, which could involve public and private investments of up to $14 billion, would be developed by R/V Moynihan Station LLC, a joint venture of the Related Cos. and Vornado Realty Trust. The scoping documents envision Moynihan Station West, which would use the existing Farley building and would include the new Madison Square Garden and a glass-topped hall serving New Jersey Transit, and Moynihan Station East, which would include a new Pennsylvania Station after demolishing the existing Madison Square Garden and possibly one or two office towers. The plan also calls for up to 7.5 million square feet of office, retail, and possibly residential space that could be developed either on Moynihan Station East or spread out in the area, depending on which options are adopted. In what the document calls a “reasonable worst-case analysis,” the entire post office building, except the New Jersey Transit space, could be used for Madison Square Garden offices and ticket sales. The ESDC acquired the Farley building from the United States Postal Service in March for $230 million. Public comment on the proposal is scheduled to begin on Dec. 6 and the project would be completed by 2018.