(credit: Madison Square Garden)

The first stage of a $850 million renovation of Madison Square Garden is complete, Crain’s reported. On the event level, there are 20 new luxury suites, with 10 to 12 seats so that fans can sit rather than stand, as they were doing previously. There’s also a 10,000-square-foot Delta Sky360 Club in what was formerly an underused storage area.

“A project like this has never been done before, an active arena being transformed,” Hank Ratner, CEO of Madison Square Garden, said. The first phase of the renovation also includes an expanded sixth-floor concourse — three times as wide as the previous one, and expanded locker rooms for home sports teams the Knicks and the Rangers.
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Construction at Madison Square Garden (source: Madison Square Garden)

When complete, construction at Madison Square Garden will help push ticket prices up 50 percent, but for now, it’s depressing the public corporation’s earnings. Deadline.com reported that with the entertainment venue closed for women’s basketball, concerts and shows due to renovations, second-quarter profits were down 39 percent from the previous quarter and fell 21 percent below analysts’ expectations.

The renovation will continue over three summers and is expected to cost between $775 million and $850 million. [more]

A last-minute deal has prevented a strike of concrete workers at high-profile building construction sites, Crain’s reported. Concrete unions and an industry association came to a tentative contract agreement this evening before a midnight deadline that could have led the 2,700 workers affected to strike. Cement contractors had demanded that the unions accept a 20 percent pay cut on residential and hotel work as they compete with other companies that use nonunion builders. [more]

Concrete workers that abandoned some construction sites in the wake of their expired labor contract were ordered to return to their jobs Tuesday night. Crain’s reported that an arbitrator ruled that concrete laborers at West 57th Street, Madison Square Garden, Barclays Center and Tower 2 of the World Trade Center were in violation of a no-strike provision in labor agreements at those sites.

The Cement and Concrete Workers District Council plans to appeal the ruling, Crain’s said, as it will argue that the no-strike agreement is not applicable since the contract expired in June. But by Wednesday workers at all four sites were back on the job. A similar hearing is scheduled today for walkouts at the new Weill Cornell Medical College on East 69th Street. [more]

There are sweeping changes afoot at Madison Square Garden, the Wall Street Journal reported, so much so that MSG President and Chief Executive Hank Ratner is referring to the building as “the fifth Garden,” an entirely new arena that just happens to be in the same building. The first round of renovations is slated to be completed by October, in time for the Rangers’ home opener.

MSG executives this week gave the most detailed look at renovations so far. The Garden has been gutted and the locker rooms, Delta Club and 1879 Club are all only halfway completed. As previously reported, the project is expected to cost between $775 million and $850 million.

With ticket price hikes of 49 percent coming into play this season, being a premium ticket holder comes with a few extra perks. [more]

Madison Square Garden, the host of about 400 events each year, is
preparing to undergo a “wholesale overhaul,” the Wall Street Journal
reported. The project is expected to cost between $775 million and $850
million, with the bulk of the work being done over three
consecutive summers to minimize disruptions when the Knicks and Rangers are playing. The scheduled completion date is October 2013. Plans
include an expanded sixth-floor concourse, refurbished
seating, new locker rooms and 20 new suites. Hank Ratner, CEO of MSG, said the process
will require 2.6 million work hours, creating the equivalent of 1,300
full-time jobs. It is being funded entirely without public assistance
or subsidies. The arena last underwent changes in 1991, when 89 luxury
suites were added at a cost of $200 million. [WSJ]

[more]

Madison Square Garden, the host of about 400 events each year, is
preparing to undergo a “wholesale overhaul,” the Wall Street Journal
reported. The project is expected to cost between $775 million and $850
million, with the bulk of the work being done over three
consecutive summers to minimize disruptions when the Knicks and Rangers are playing. The scheduled completion date is October 2013. Plans
include an expanded sixth-floor concourse, refurbished
seating, new locker rooms and 20 new suites. Hank Ratner, CEO of MSG, said the process
will require 2.6 million work hours, creating the equivalent of 1,300
full-time jobs. It is being funded entirely without public assistance
or subsidies. The arena last underwent changes in 1991, when 89 luxury
suites were added at a cost of $200 million. [WSJ]

[more]

Madison Square Garden

Madison Square Garden, currently at the beginning stages of an $850 million renovation, would move one block west under a revived proposal by Vornado Realty Trust’s Steven Roth that is gaining traction amongst arena and city officials, the New York Times reported. MSG’s 5,600-square-foot theater is slated to close temporarily at the end of June for the first stage of construction. Roth, who controls much of the area, including 1 Penn Plaza and the Hotel Pennsylvania, reportedly told officials that the renovation would be more expensive and disruptive than building a new arena altogether. Furthermore, he contended, it won’t hold a candle to Brooklyn’s planned Barclays Center for the Nets even when the job is done. Roth’s plans call for MSG to move into the James A. Farley Post Office across the street, which would also become part of an expanded transit hub called Moynihan Station. The current arena would be demolished and rebuilt as a retail mall. [NYT]

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New York City’s WNBA fans might have to look elsewhere for games starting in summer 2011, according to the New York Times, when Turner Construction begins a ramped up effort to complete Madison Square Garden’s approximately $800 million arena renovation. MSG plans to completely shut down the arena for three consecutive summers while the accelerated renovation effort, which includes refurbished seats and suites, takes place. [more]

Madison Square Garden is in need of $850 million in renovations, the arena’s management said, and it may not be able to afford them. Previous estimates had pegged the upgrades at $500 million and the Knicks had secured a $375 million loan to help cover the work last week. The rest was to be covered by inter-company loans and the basketball team’s existing cash flows. Last week’s loan terms stipulate that the arena’s debt can only be six times as large as its cash flow, and it’s already getting close at a 5.33 leverage ratio once the loans are drawn, according to research firm CreditSights. One option for the Knicks is to raise ticket prices. Another is to allow player contracts to expire at the end of this season without picking up the tab for any new sky-high salaries, or to borrow some cash from parent company Cablevision Systems. Still, there is the possibility that the Garden’s renovation project could be even more costly than the $850 million now projected. “The New York City construction project that comes in on budget and on time is as rare as a C train after midnight,” CreditSights quipped.