In some ways, the undertaking mirrored Mr. Cuomo’s different efforts to place his imprint on town, together with the renovation of the Moynihan Prepare Corridor throughout the road from Penn Station and his reconstruction of town’s main airports in Queens.
On this case, the funds from the event would pay for beauty enhancements at Penn Station, in addition to a possible enlargement of the station a block south of its present location. New tracks and platforms would add rail capability alongside the economically very important hall connecting commuters in New Jersey to jobs in New York, after a second tunnel is constructed below the Hudson River.
The state would wield its authority to overrule native zoning and planning legal guidelines in order that builders might construct greater buildings on the website than in any other case allowed. When Ms. Hochul succeeded Mr. Cuomo, she continued the state’s help for the undertaking whereas making modest modifications to appease critics, reminiscent of increasing pedestrian pathways and barely decreasing the undertaking’s proposed scale.
The report additionally highlights a key concern from critics: It might largely profit a single firm, Vornado Realty Belief, one of many metropolis’s largest workplace builders. Vornado owns 4 websites within the improvement zone and a part of a fifth, and its chief govt, Steven Roth, final 12 months donated the utmost, $69,700, to Ms. Hochul’s marketing campaign.
Mr. Roth, alongside together with his relations, additionally gave Mr. Cuomo about $400,000 in marketing campaign donations earlier than he resigned. State officers and a Vornado spokesman have stated the donations didn’t affect Vornado’s function within the enterprise. Mr. Roth has referred to as the redevelopment of the Penn Station space Vornado’s “Promised Land.”
In an earnings name this week, Mr. Roth reiterated the corporate’s dedication to the state’s undertaking. “Clearly, we help it,” he stated.
A Vornado spokesman declined to touch upon the report on the report.
Regardless of the state’s multiyear work on the undertaking and its imminent approval, the Unbiased Finances Workplace discovered that the plan lacked a sturdy evaluation of the quite a few dangers, together with the implications of the shift to distant work and whether or not the brand new Penn Station towers might negatively affect Hudson Yards, the large improvement on the far West Facet of Manhattan. Hudson Yards opened in 2019 and has a equally structured tax deal because the proposed Penn Station website.
