N.Y. MTA Headquarters for Lease

New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority, envisioning “significant revenue” for its capital program, said it will vacate its midtown Manhattan headquarters by the end of next year.

The MTA this week issued a request for proposals to real estate developers seeking bids for the site, it said in a statement Thursday. Bids are due Aug. 14.

The agency intends to award a long-term lease to a developer expected to demolish the buildings and redevelop the location with modern offices, a hotel, residential tower, or a mixture of uses.

Its buildings at 341, 345 and 347 Madison Ave., occupy a full block front between 44th and 45th Streets. The agency’s board of directors holds its regular meetings at 347 Madison.

Relinquishing the site, which the MTA announced in April 2011, is part of an effort to generate $600 million in cost savings or new revenues by reducing office space and maximizing the value of its real estate holdings.

Such moves include an agreement to relinquish the former New York City Transit headquarters at 370 Jay St. in downtown Brooklyn for use by New York University, saving the agency $184 million in renovation expenses; reducing office-space needs by 18% by 2015; and reviewing, in conjunction with the New York City Economic Development Corp., proposals from developers for eight properties that New York City owns or New York City Transit controls under a 1953 master lease agreement.

Those sites include a triangular parking lot at Houston Street and Broadway in SoHo, and a former golf driving range at Gun Hill Road and the New England Thruway in the Bronx.

Employees who now work on Madison Avenue buildings will move to other MTA offices. MTA headquarters staff will move to 2 Broadway in lower Manhattan, which already houses the headquarters of MTA New York City Transit, MTA Bridges and Tunnels, and MTA Capital Construction.

Employees of Metro-North Railroad will move to the Graybar Building at 420 Lexington Ave.

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Transportation industry New York
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