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Posted by
Gold_12TH
on Mon Feb 13 14:17:17 2012
State and federal officials wary about mounting costs plan to scale back the first segment of work for the future Moynihan Station, the latest setback for an ambitious project almost two decades in the making.
Plans to revamp a concourse and upgrade passenger amenities in a portion of Penn Station were narrowed after officials determined that bids for the estimated $267 million project came in too high, said Patrick Foye, executive director of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which is assuming control of the long-delayed venture.
The board of directors of the Moynihan Station Development Corp. voted to reject the bids last week.
The first phase was intended as the cheaper and simpler of the project's two-phase timeline: a series of improvements, with full funding already secured, that would make it easier for current Amtrak, New Jersey Transit, Long Island Rail Road and New York City subway passengers to circulate in the cramped Eighth Avenue station. Penn Station is the nation's busiest rail passenger hub.
The changes would have helped set the stage for the more challenging—and far more expensive—second phase: the transformation of the James A. Farley Post Office, a Beaux Arts landmark with soaring ceilings occupying two city blocks, into a new Amtrak passenger terminal and multilevel shopping center.
The lowest bid came under the projected cost but didn't include a big enough cushion for possible cost-overruns, a person familiar with the project said.
"The response of the federal government, state government, MTA and Port Authority to the higher-than-expected bids is a unified approach to reduce the scope of phase one and thereby reduce the amount to be spent," Mr. Foye said in an interview on Friday. "Phase one is funded and all government parties are working closely together to move phase one forward."
While Mr. Foye expressed confidence that the first wave of station improvements would go forward, the latest hiccup underscores the challenges that still lie ahead for Moynihan.
Plans to replace Penn Station as the primary West Side gateway for rail passengers have advanced fitfully since the early 1990s, when Amtrak officials adopted then-Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan's proposal to convert the Farley building into a new station. Supporters included many who mourned the demise of the initial Penn Station, the McKim, Mead & White landmark demolished in 1963 to make way for Madison Square Garden.
The project appeared to be gaining momentum in 2010, when political leaders posed on Eighth Avenue, sledgehammers in hand, at a ceremonial groundbreaking for the first phase, which got the go-ahead after $83 million in federal stimulus money provided the final funding boost.
Now, even as the initial leg of work is scaled back, funding for the second phase has yet to be found. And the project's completion will now be overseen by the Port Authority, an agency already laden with immense building projects and infrastructure responsibilities, and funding shortfalls of its own.
The agency faces cascading demands on its funds and resources. A recent agency audit pegged its share of the reconstruction of the World Trade Center at roughly $7.7 billion.
Still to come this spring is the second half of that audit, which will review funding for a number of high-profile infrastructure projects—including replacing the Goethals Bridge, raising the level of the Bayonne Bridge and cable repairs on the George Washington Bridge—and the status of Moynihan Station.
In an interview this week, Port Authority Board Chairman David Samson didn't directly address Moynihan Station but acknowledged that the authority will be seeking new options to finance some of the projects to which it is committed, and faces critical choices about how work will proceed.
"We can't do projects for everybody," Mr. Samson said, referring to the demands on the Port Authority capital budget. "We have to be selective and we have to be smart."
In the interview, Mr. Foye said officials agreed to rebid the contract, focusing on the expansion of the existing West End Concourse, nestled beneath the main steps of the Farley building. Other elements of the first phase, including improvements to the 33rd Street corridor under Eighth Avenue, two new entrances to the station across Eighth Avenue and a new passenger waiting area, will follow once costs can be lowered, Mr. Foye said.
The initial work will provide immediate benefits to commuters at Penn Station, he said. The proposed concourse improvements would roughly double the width and length of the existing concourse. And the project will extend the concourse south, to serve nine of the underlying tracks, up from the current five.
Representatives for the two real-estate firms that share development rights at Moynihan Station, Vornado Realty Trust and Related Cos., didn't respond to requests for comment.
--- http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203824904577215653106861834.html?mod=WSJ_NY_News_LEFTTopStories
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