Manhattan BP rolls out MSG and Penn Station plan, supports 8th Ave repair.

metro

by Nolan Hicks

May 22, 2023 | 1:52 p.m

Manhattan Borough President Mark Levine supports a plan to overhaul Penn Station that would leave Madison Square Garden atop the transit hub, but calls for the demolition of the adjacent grandstand to create a grand new entrance to the complex at 8th Street.

Levine’s plan mirrors major proposals by an Italian design firm, ASTM, which shocked officials when it jumped into the competition to overhaul the city’s notorious rail and subway hub with a proposal focused on a grand new West Side entrance.

The ASTM proposal emerged as falling commercial real estate values ​​undermined the original plan put forward by two successive governors—the disgraced Andrew Cuomo and his successor, Cathy Hochul—to build new office towers around the station and use the revenue to fund a focused 7th Avenue. station repair.

“I don’t want to lose this opportunity,” Levine told the newspaper. “I want to lock up a plan now.”

Levine took pains to say he wasn’t explicitly in favor of The Italian Job, which doesn’t yet have an official price tag or engineering graphs, but said he found its key components attractive.

ATSM told elected officials it expects to provide additional details on its proposal this summer.

The company has hired Pat Foy, a former TTA president, to help make its case to local elected leaders.

He calls for the Hulu Theater to be purchased and demolished to make way for a new grand entrance along 8th Avenue at Penn Station.

“I like a lot of what they suggested,” he said. “I find the idea of ​​demolishing the theater to build a grand new entrance compelling.”

Levine added — like many other Manhattan lawmakers over the years — that he still supports the eventual relocation of Madison Square Garden from upstate Pennsylvania, which transportation advocates have long argued is necessary to overhaul the station’s century-old platform designs.

However, he said, continued resistance to relocation from the park’s owner, James Dolan, and continued struggle to find an alternative site meant the fight had to be pushed to the side.

“There is no viable site nearby,” he added. “We’ve already lost one decade waiting for that and I don’t want to lose another.”

Levine’s leverage is Dolan’s request to renew his permit to operate the park, which must be approved by the City Council.

The zoning process also requires Levine to provide an opinion on the request, though his thumbs up or thumbs down is purely advisory.

The TCA’s current leadership — including Chairman Jano Lieber, who served as head of major projects at FOI — has pushed back hard on ASTM’s plan.

“We look forward to a full briefing on these concepts,” MTA spokesman John McCarthy said in March. “However, we remain concerned that the proposal, as demonstrated thus far, lacks key elements of the master plan approved by Amtrak, New Jersey Transit and MTA.”