MTA to buy Grand Central Terminal for $35M

Opportunity is part of agency's lease

Grand Central Terminal at 89 East 42nd Street and Fernando Ferrer (Credit: Wikipedia and Getty Images)
Grand Central Terminal at 89 East 42nd Street and Fernando Ferrer (Credit: Wikipedia and Getty Images)

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority plans to buy Grand Central Terminal for $35 million.

The opportunity to buy the terminal is part of the agency’s long-term lease, which stipulates that MTA’s window to purchase Grand Central opened in 2017 and closes in October 2019. During an MTA finance committee meeting on Tuesday, members voted in favor of the sale, the Wall Street Journal reported. The deal will include the terminal building as well as the Hudson Line from Grand Central to Poughkeepsie, and the Harlem Line to Dover Plains.

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The price of the terminal is a combination of the MTA’s annual rent and the value of MSD Capital and TF Cornerstone’s reversionary stake, which the lease pegs at $400,000. The deal doesn’t include the property’s remaining air rights, which MSD and TF Cornerstone took over, along with the terminal, in 2016 when they purchased investment group Midtown Trackage Ventures. Midtown bought the air rights and terminal in 2008.

[WSJ] — Kathryn Brenzel