I’d really like to see both of these sites focus on hotel and residential.
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Interesting
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Thanks, I saw on my YouTube recs her announcing something but I rather read about it.
She’s finally facing reality.
The article headline is completely nonsensical. It’s amazing how little the media understands what’s happening re. Penn Station redevelopment. The Hochul press conference yesterday had zero to do with Vornado’s plans or Penn South. It was all about the existing LIRR renovation plans.
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From someone who watched the entire video/announcement yesterday, that is not true. There’s nothing wrong about the article’s headlines expect maybe the use of the word abandon, but the media has not misinterpeted anything.
All the recent news articles about Penn station are not explicitly about the conference Gov Hochul made yesterday, they are only about the part when she mentioned that the Penn station expansion will be separated from the overall ESC proposal of which they always were. Almost nothing of the press conference was about the new LIRR concourse but a minute fraction of the beginning introduction… it was literally all about the new design plan and expansion proposal for Penn Station.
The CO article headline doesnt say anything about Penn South, and in addition Vornado’s plans are a part of the larger ESC development (as is Penn south), so they are a part of the conversation, like many other articles have written.
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I read the whole speech transcript. The article title communicates two things - Vornado’s office plans abandoned (untrue), new design process has been initiated (also untrue). Yesterday’s announcement has zero to do with Vornado’s office plans, and the design process isn’t new, it’s the same process for the same project, just the next step (soliciting entries).
The big takeaway from yesterday’s announcement actually isn’t in the annoucement. It’s that the MSG-ASTM plan doesn’t appear to have state support, and probably isn’t happening.
It says Penn Station Office Plan, not Vornado’s, Vornado doesnt need to be in the title because the conference was not naming their portion of the ESC, they were speaking about it generally, so it is not untrue that they are abandoning the use of funding the station’s expansion through tax funds generated by the ESC, the use of the word abandoned just implies that the ESC is not happening anymore, that is what is untrue. Vornado only owns half of the ESC sites, saying Penn Sation towers doesnt automatically mean Vornado, it means the entire complex. Gov Hochul literally said she is detaching the 2 projects from eachother, the use of the word abandoned doesnt mean the title is lying.
Nothing about the title is nonsensical, because it’s literally just a clickbait version of what is happening, but that still doesnt mean the media doesn’t understand what is going on because the article itself still relays the same information that was relayed at the press meeting yesterday.
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Reduced Office Use
The state’s change of plan comes as New York’s office vacancy rate has reached what CoStar data shows as another record high of over 13% with the amount of space for sublet also at a peak. Security firm Kastle Systems’ keycard swipe data shows New York’s office utilization rate still hovers just around 50%.
To lure tenants, even high-end offices benefiting from the so-called flight-to-quality workspace are giving away the equivalent of about a quarter of rent as concessions on average, a recent Avison Young study said. The lack of office workers also has curtailed area retail, restaurant, and other service businesses that depend on them, studies have found.
Vornado, which recently completed upgrading its Penn 1 tower and is revamping the Penn 2 tower above the station as part of its mega Penn District project, is pausing any new development in light of the economic uncertainty and higher borrowing costs that have seized market activity.
CEO Steven Roth, long a proponent of the benefit of employees working in the office, has also acknowledged that hybrid work patterns driven by the pandemic, higher interest rates and other economic concerns have led to a slower-than-expected return to the office.
“This has been a project that has had a few setbacks,” Hochul said at a news conference this week. “This has been a long talked about sometimes controversial initiative. … We are no longer tolerating the delay. [Penn Station is] crowded, congested. It’s unpleasant. We are decoupling this from the prior … plan. It doesn’t mean we aren’t going to build office space at some point. While demand for office space is down right now, we believe this will be temporary.”
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Since the Penn Plaza East project (Site 5) has its own topic here in the forum, I am now creating a separate one about Penn Plaza West (Site 4).
Rendering by Vornado
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???
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Per NYGuy on SSP:
https://skyscraperpage.com/forum/showpost.php?p=10042799&postcount=1318
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URL is paywalled.
Bypass available here.
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