Hudson Yards rendering

Related Companies and Amtrak have agreed to begin work on a new rail tunnel between New Jersey and Manhattan, the New York Post reported.

Construction on the 800-foot-long “box tunnel” will begin this summer right under Related’s Hudson Yards megaproject and is expected to cost between $120 and $150 million, primarily funded by federal dollars. Sen. Chuck Schumer, who championed the deal, told the Post that it marked “a red-letter day for the future of New York-New Jersey mass transit.” He recognized the agreement as a commitment to a new tunnel for the first time since New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie nixed plans for a $15 billion four-track project in 2010.  [more]

Chicago Skyline

From the September issue: In our monthly roundup of real estate news from across the nation, The Real Deal leads with on one of the largest office leases ever signed in Chicago at the former Sears Tower. The report also includes details on the largest office building sale in Miami since 2008 and Amtrak’s proposal for a $7 billion expansion of Washington, D.C.’s Union Station. On the residential side, we have news on Michael Phelps selling his Baltimore home, Bill Koch building an Old West-style town in Colorado, David Schwimmer selling his Los Angeles estate for $8.9 million and more. Click here to read the entire report.

Moynihan Station renderings

Amtrak released renderings of the planned interior of its Moynihan Station expansion, the New York Observer reported. In yesterday’s updated vision for its Northeast corridor high-speed rail, Amtrak laid out its plan to expand the present terminals across Eighth Avenue into the Farley Post Office Building for a new station. [more]

A rendering of Manhattan West

Brookfield Office Properties is awaiting only the go-ahead from Amtrak, which operates the train tracks beneath the site slated for its massive Manhattan West project, before it begins construction on a deck to cover the rail yards.

The New York Post reported that while Brookfield officials say they are 95 percent of the way to an agreement with Amtrak executives, Amtrak in turn said the sides still have “some substantive” issues to iron out. The developer had previously said construction would start in January. [more]

Development firm Gotham Organization has secured a $530 million construction loan from a group led by Wells Fargo for a residential complex on the Far West Side, according to Crain’s.
The development, called Gotham West, will consist of four buildings and about 1,240 residential units taking up almost a whole block between 44th and West 45th streets and 10th and 11th avenues. Construction is slated to commence in the third quarter of this year, according to the company’s website. More than 500 of the units have been designated as affordable housing…. [more]

A proposed $13.5 billion Amtrak tunnel that would link New Jersey commuter trains to a new, expanded Penn Station would involve razing the entire Midtown block between 30th and 31st streets, and Seventh and Eighth avenues, DNAinfo reported. According to plans released by New Jersey Sen. Frank Lautenberg (see them after the jump), the so-called Gateway Project calls for building a new “Penn South” station in place of the existing buildings in its footprint, currently home to restaurants, businesses and churches that were taken by surprise upon hearing of their potential demolition. … [more]

The Long Island Rail Road is looking to revamp its Penn Station space, according to the Wall Street Journal. LIRR officials would like to improve the space by adding better signage and more natural light to facilitate passenger flow. “It’s a facility that’s showing its age,” said Helena Williams, LIRR president. “It’s cluttered visually, functionally.” The railroad plans to solicit designers early next year to study the problems at Penn Station and come up with proposals for fixing them, which should take less than a year, Williams said. … [more]

The city is mulling a $5.3 billion proposal to extend the No. 7 subway line into Secaucus after New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie axed a planned Hudson River commuter rail tunnel that would have ended on West 34th Street in Manhattan. While the No. 7 extension plan wouldn’t be the direct New Jersey-to-New York City commute that some transportation advocates were hoping for (commuters would still have to transfer in Secaucus to NJ Transit lines) it would be about half as costly as the original plan, which Christie killed due to potential cost overruns. … [more]

NJ Gov. Chris Christie, who cancelled the project last month

Amtrak and NJ Transit are in “exploratory” talks to resuscitate a plan to build another commuter rail tunnel between New Jersey and Midtown Manhattan, two weeks after the project was axed by New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie because of its cost. According to the Star-Ledger, the nine-mile, Secauacus-West 34th Street tunnel known as Access to the Region’s Core would take at least 20 years to build if the plan were to be revived by the transit groups. Christie cancelled the project last month citing cost overruns of up to $5 billion, and in doing so, he gave up the chance to receive $3 billion in federal funding and another $3 billion in funding from the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. The tunnel was originally supposed to be complete by 2018. Meanwhile, Amtrak has said it wants to have two more tunnels into New York Penn Station by 2030. “We do have a serious need for expanded transit into Manhattan, but riders shouldn’t hold their breath for this tunnel,” said transportation advocate Zoe Baldwin, of the Tri-State Transportation Campaign. “We went off track when we canceled ARC.” [Star-Ledger]

… [more]

Amtrak has reached a preliminary agreement to move to the Pennsylvania Station annex planned for the James A. Farley Post Office Building, officials said yesterday. The agreement, reached after lengthy negotiations, would remove one of the most significant stumbling blocks for the Moynihan Station project: Amtrak remaining in its current location. The project aims to expand Penn Station with an annex in the post office building and create a more visible entrance to the station, which is below Madison Square Garden. In exchange for moving, Amtrak will receive some of the revenue from retail stores in the expanded station, though the details of the arrangement have not yet been fully decided. The project is likely to cost $1.1 billion to $1.5 billion, Senator Charles Schumer, an advocate of the renovations, said.