The Real Deal New York

Moynihan Station is the long-held dream of transit wonks and politicians alike (not to mention ordinary, everyday commuters) to transform the current James A. Farley Post Office at 421 Eighth Avenue into a soaring, modern hub along the lines of Grand Central Terminal across town.

Plans for the station go back to the late 1990s, when then-U.S. Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan proposed moving the entrances and concourses of the current Penn Station underneath the post office across the street.

Plans for what came to be called Moynihan Station after the senator's death in 2003 got pushed further into the future, and eventually collapsed as various parties involved, including the Port Authority, the city, New Jersey Transit and Amtrak, failed to agree on scopes and timelines. Moynihan Station, however, was resurrected in the spring of 2012 under the administration of Governor Andrew Cuomo. That $270 million plan would roughly double the width and length of Penn Station's western concourse and  create six new entrances.

While the state would oversee the first phase, the expansion and renovation of the train depot, the second continues to be the purview of a joint venture between Vornado Realty Trust and the Related Companies, which agreed in 2006 to pay the state $310 million for the rights to develop retail (and perhaps hotel rooms) in a revamped station.

In the fall of 2014, Robert Knakal, then of Massey Knakal Realty Services but subsequently of Cushman & Wakefield, won a competitive process to market the unused air rights above the building.