Steve Roth’s Vornado Realty Trust is renegotiating a long-delayed development project on the far West Side to focus on bigger plans next door.
The pivot comes 15 years after the New York City Economic Development Corporation selected Vornado to redevelop and expand an existing trade show facility on Pier 94 between West 52nd and 54th streets. The project was expected to create 355,000 square feet of space that would expand the facility to include the adjacent Pier 92 and help the city capitalize on trade show and conference business.
But the site has since languished through years of stalled work and a recent pause in rent payments by Vornado after Pier 92 was deemed structurally unsound. Crain’s now reports that the developer and the city are dropping plans for Pier 92 to focus on Pier 94, where Vornado is planning a movie studio.
The REIT, which has voiced concerns in recent months over the economic conditions facing new development projects, has nearly finalized a new lease with the city.
The deal will be the subject of a May 24 hearing by the Mayor’s Office of Contract Services and could be signed shortly after. Demolition of the remaining structure on Pier 94 is set to begin this fall and construction on the film studio to finish by late 2025.
Changes to the 99-year lease have caught the attention of the local community board, which took issue with details including the $900,000 in base rent for Pier 94 over the next five years, a 10 percent cut from its current $1 million rent. Though Vornado’s rent will increase every five years to a maximum of $2.8 million in 2100, community board members feel it’s too low for the area.
As for Pier 92, EDC president and CEO Andrew Kimball said the agency will explore “a variety of different uses” for public access.
The new lease suggests that the dilapidated pier could be used for parking to support the neighboring project on Pier 94, according to Jeffrey LeFrancois, chair of Manhattan Community Board 4.
The studio project, which is expected to deliver a community facility and 25,000 square feet of open space on the pier, joins a few other incoming production facilities in and around New York City. Along with the $600 million Wildflower Studios project in Astoria, Netflix is bringing an $848 million studio in Fort Monmouth, New Jersey, and Lionsgate is building a $100 million studio of its own in Newark.
– Ellen Cranley
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