Mystery 4th Bidder Enters Contest to Rebuild Penn Station

“The firing gun really has started.”

That is Andy Byford, special adviser to Amtrak, describing the opening on Dec. 16 of one of the most significant development competitions in modern New York history.

At 2 p.m. that day, letters arrived from four separate teams of architects and builders expressing interest in being Amtrak’s private partner in rebuilding Penn Station.

That number, four, was, itself, news. For several years now most of the conversations about rehabilitating, reinventing, or restoring Penn Station have been driven by three groups, all of which were understood to have submitted letters of interest in turning those conversations into construction.

So, who then is the fourth bidder? The bidders are all under instructions from Amtrak to keep their mouths shut. All that Amtrak would say is that it received four letters at the deadline. But perhaps there were clues in the attendance list for the industry day Amtrak had hosted for architects, developers, and builders interested in its project?

One of those attendees was Vornado Realty Trust, the largest private property owner in the Penn Station neighborhood. Vornado has an intense interest in the Penn Station development. For one thing, the value of its property is directly affected by the state of Penn Station. For another, it owns an office tower, Two Penn Plaza, that sits atop the station next to Madison Square Garden. And for a third, there is renewed talk of using development around the station (that is, in part, on Vornado property) to generate revenue for the Penn Station work, which will cost billions.

Just the other day, Byford told a crowd of interested parties, including potential bidders, that the overall cost of the project was a major challenge, and he would not saddle future generations with paying back big debts for the construction. https://www.westsidespirit.com/news/byford-sounds-affordability-message-for-penn-station-rebuild-NL5379483

Not much can get done without Vornado, which of course isn’t the same as Vornado actually running the project. One of the competing bidders, for example, in an earlier proposal, suggested moving Madison Square Garden to Vornado’s property across Seventh Avenue, where it recently tore down the famed Pennsylvania Hotel. Vornado has said it wants to build a luxury office tower on the site. A Vornado spokesman declined to comment. Others who attended Industry Day who are not, as yet, known to be part of a bidding group, were the British architects John McAslan + Partners and the Canadian engineering and architecture firm Stantec. Also there were the American engineering firm Bechtel and Montreal-based WSP, both of which lost out in bids to be consultants to Amtrak for the project.

The letters of interest kick off an accelerated process under which Byford will, by next May, recommend a master developer to the Amtrak Board. This developer must win out in a competition that will consider everything from the architectural vision of the proposal to its engineering feasibility.

Byford has made clear he wants to transform the station’s current labyrinth of tunnels into an airy single-level station. He also has said the presently jammed platforms need to be expanded, to improve service.

The Federal Railway Administration is currently conducting a review of operations in the station to establish what service improvements are feasible and what the future demand for greater service is likely to be.

Before Amtrak imposed its cone of silence on the procurement procedure, three groups had been active in promoting their ideas for the project. All three are presumed to have submitted letters of interest, although none would officially say so.

They are:

* Grand Penn Community Alliance, led by urban planner Alexandros Washburn and funded by supporters of President Trump and his commitment to classical architecture. The group has said it would like to move Madison Square Garden and replace it with a park and an aboveground train hall reminiscent of the original Penn Station.

* Halmar International, the American subsidiary of the Italian infrastructure company ASTM. The firm won a lot of attention and political support for its plan to leave Madison Square Garden in place but tear down the adjacent theater to create a grand entrance and train hall along Eighth Avenue, facing the Farley Post Office, which now houses the Moynihan Train Hall. The firm has teamed with architect Vishaan Chakrabarti, who has advocated for a better Penn Station for years. He is said to be tweaking his architectural plans to make them a better fit for the Trump call for classical architecture.

* Renaissance Rails, a firm newly formed by Frederick Knapp, the real estate investor and developer. Knapp has partnered with architect Richard Cameron, who has long advocated for the restoration of a classically designed Penn Station. Cameron has been a close ally of ReThink NYC, an advocacy group that has argued that improving operations at track level will reduce the need to physically expand the station into adjacent blocks.

Byford has promised to make a recommendation to the Amtrak Board by May and have construction underway by the end of 2027, a deadline he has underlined for his staff with a digital clock in their offices next to the station.

“The evaluation process is already underway exactly as per our time frame,” he said. “The headline is, we said 16th of December. We hit it. They came in dead on time. It was 2 p.m. yesterday. I remember looking at the clock, ‘It’s 1:56 and, oh here we go.’ ”