(rshsdepot) Penn Station, New York

[Bernie Wagenblast <brwagenblast_@_comcast.net>]

New plan in works for Penn Station

By ERIC HERMAN
DAILY NEWS BUSINESS WRITER

Penn Station is getting a new developer.

The state agency overseeing the conversion of the main post office will seek
a firm to transform more than half the building into a new rail facility as
early as this summer, the agency's chairman said.

The move could shrink the role of previously selected developers, including
the Staubach Company.

"They will not have the same kinds of long-term agreements and control that
they had before," Charles Gargano, chairman of the Empire State Development
Corp., told the Daily News.

Two years ago, the state tapped Staubach and Fraport AG to run the Penn
Station project, turning the Farley Post Office at Eighth Avenue between W.
31st and W. 33rd streets into a state-of-the-art transit hub, with space for
shopping.

Roger Staubach, a former football star and supporter of President Bush,
founded the company that bears his name.

Officials had said the station would be done by 2004. But it got bogged down
in negotiations between the state and the U.S. Postal Service over control
of the building.

Under a tentative deal reached last year, the state agreed to buy Farley for
$230 million. It also expanded the commercial space to be developed from
100,000 to 700,000 square feet.

With the project larger, the state will look for a new company to build and
run 60% of it, with Staubach keeping 40%. Gargano said a new bidding would
begin late this summer, when the post office sale is due to be completed.
Preliminary construction could also begin then, and would take four years.

Meanwhile, state officials are set to meet with Staubach executives next
week to renegotiate their agreement.

"We're relatively convinced that we're going to have a major role in the
project going forward, and that role may change," said Staubach executive
Peter Larkin.


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The Railroad Station Historical Society maintains a database of existing
railroad structures at: http://www.rrshs.org

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