Cuomo Pitches $60M High Line Extension To New Penn Station Train Hall
A new era for the High Line on Manhattan’s west side is coming, with plans afoot for it to be extended to reach the recently opened Moynihan Train Hall.
The elevated pathway, which currently runs from Gansevoort Street in the Meatpacking District up to Hudson Yards, will have another L-shaped piece added to it so it connects to the new train station, The New York Times reports.
The expansion is slated to cost about $60M, a third of which will be paid for by Brookfield, which is developing Manhattan West, the mixed-use project between Hudson Yards and the new train hill. Another third of the walkway will be paid for by the state and the rest would come from nonprofits.
“This will be the most ambitious redevelopment that New York City has seen in decades," Gov. Andrew Cuomo said in a statement. "When the private sector economy lags, state governments build infrastructure and spur development … This connection is part of a district-wide redevelopment of the West Side that will jumpstart the private market in a post-COVID world."
Brookfield Managing Partner Ben Brown said the extension would be a “major addition” to the area, and it would make it easier for pedestrians to navigate the development and the neighborhood.
There is no set completion date, and the proposal is for the walkway to be extended eastward from 10th Avenue and 30th Street and run along Dyer Avenue, and then run north until reaching public space outside the train hall.
The first phase of the High Line opened in 2009 and was extended up to Hudson Yards in 2014. In 2019, around 8 million people visited the park, and it is credited with spurring multiple large-scale real estate developments, including HFZ Capital's now troubled, $2B luxury condo-hotel project, The XI. The first two parts of the park, which has become a major tourist attraction, cost $152M.
The $1.6B new Moynihan train hall opened on New Year’s Day and turned part of the James A. Farley Post Office building into a new transport hub that expands the capacity of Penn Station and allows travelers to wait for trains in an expansive atrium bathed in natural light, rather than the long-derided subterranean Penn Station.
The area has seen significant redevelopment in recent years. As well as Manhattan West, which includes 6M SF of office space, a 2-acre public park, a boutique hotel, more than 200K SF of retail space and a luxury rental tower, Vornado is revamping 740K SF of the Farley Building into a new office space. The entire office portion of the building was leased to Facebook last year in one of the biggest deals of 2020.
