To move, or not to move?
That was the question hovering over Madison Square Garden on Wednesday as Amtrak released a shortlist of finalists to overhaul Penn Station, located beneath the arena.
The national railroad announced three consortia will vie for a lucrative contract to rebuild — and eventually run — the nation’s busiest transit hub, which is notorious for being dingy, dark and difficult to navigate. The list comes less than a year after President Donald Trump took control of the long-stalled project from the MTA and turned it over to Amtrak, which owns the station.
The feds provided no details on the actual proposals from each group, but two of them have publicly presented their visions to redevelop the station. One would force Madison Square Garden to move across Seventh Avenue to create a new light-filled train station. Another would leave the arena in place, while carving out new entrances and windows that make the station easier to navigate.
The proposal to move Madison Square Garden comes from the group Grand Penn Partners. Last year, the group released a plan to build a new arena on the site of the now-demolished Hotel Pennsylvania.
Grand Penn is backed by the conservative National Civic Art Society and supported by mega-Trump donor Thomas Klingenstein. The partners believe in bringing neoclassical architecture back to American buildings through Greco-Roman columns and marble. They describe the aesthetic as “Make America Beautiful Again.” Macquarie, an Australian investment bank, is behind the plan’s financing.
“That the Macquarie Group, the world’s largest infrastructure asset manager, is backing the Grand Penn proposal shows just how superior the scheme is,” Justin Shubow, president of the National Civic Art Society, said in a statement. “The National Civic Art Society is proud that our original idea for a new classical station — which we began campaigning for over 10 years ago — is closer to fruition than ever.”
Halmar International, which is currently expanding the Second Avenue subway into East Harlem, is behind the other public proposal. Its plan would keep MSG in place and renovate Penn Station without expanding service, while also renovating the exterior of the arena’s dome.
Penn Forward Now, the third finalist, is a consortium of major developers including Tutor, Parsons and ARUP. That design proposal to revitalize Penn Station has yet to be publicly shared.
“As scheduled in the project timeline, three qualified teams have been shortlisted to compete to become the Master Developer and lead the delivery of Penn Station’s comprehensive transformation,” federal DOT spokesperson Danna Almeida said in a statement.
The DOT said the master developer will be selected in May and announced publicly by June.
The agency appointed former New York City Transit President Andy Byford to lead the redevelopment, setting an ambitious deadline to have shovels in the ground by 2027. The arena’s operating permit expires in 2028.
