Speaker Christine Quinn (center) will push harder to redevelop Farley
Post Office (left) to replace Penn Station which she compared
unfavorably to Union Station in D.C. (right)

City Council speaker Christine Quinn told contractors and builders at a
morning breakfast today that the Moynihan Station planners need to
consider smaller or staggered plans, despite the fact that Pennsylvania
Station is an eyesore. “At this point we need to come up with a plan even if it is smaller or
phased in,” for the project located in her city council district, she
said. Quinn was speaking to members of the New York Building Congress at its
industry breakfast forum at the Hilton New York Hotel in Midtown today. The Moynihan Station plan envisions converting the James A. Farley Post
Office on Eighth Avenue and 33rd Street to a rail transit hub, part of
a wider vision to transform the Penn Station area, with a new Madison
Square Garden structure and office towers. [more]

Troubled high-profile projects such as Related Companies’ Moynihan
Station and Solow Development’s East River site were among the city’s
developments with the highest lobbying expenses in 2008, a review of
city records by The Real Deal shows. Developers and real estate associations paid more than $11.5 million in
lobbying expenses to law firms and consulting companies, with the
Related Companies topping the list last year with $898,104 in payments
for all its projects citywide, the analysis of data from the City Clerk
Web site reveals. Among its expenses, Related paid $300,817 for lobbying for the delayed
Moynihan Station, while Solow paid $466,384 for the East River
development site, out of a total of $556,384. Solow is facing lawsuits
from lenders at the project. Forest City Ratner, which spent a total of
$555,741 on lobbying efforts, spent $500,741 on Atlantic Yards, which
has been delayed by successive lawsuits.
[more]

Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Sen. Charles Schumer traded barbs yesterday over plans to develop Manhattan’s far West Side. Schumer said that building Moynihan Station and developing the area around Penn Station should be a higher priority than turning the Hudson Yards area into a business district. “I appreciate all the senator’s views on Moynihan Station. His part of the job is to bring us the money,” Bloomberg said. The mayor rejected Schumer’s suggestion that the Port Authority should build Moynihan Station, saying that the authority has struggled to rebuild the World Trade Center. [Post] and [Crain's]
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