A day after declaring it would cost $8 billion to rebuild Penn Station — and a day before the Amtrak Board was scheduled to meet — Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy announced Wednesday that Halmar, the U.S. arm of Italian company ASTM Group, would be in charge of the massive project.
The announcement comes a month after President Donald Trump hinted at favoring the firm in an interview with the New York Post.
United States Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy enters the New York City subway system the Dekalb Ave-Flatbush Ave. train station in Brooklyn on Friday, April 4, 2025. (Theodore Parisienne / New York Daily News)
Details were scarce on the plan Halmar pitched to Amtrak to become master developer of the dilapidated midtown hub, but a list of features touted by a USDOT spokesman lined up with an earlier plan hawked by ASTM before the federal takeover.
Halmar’s plan involved the construction of a “grand entrance on Eighth Avenue,” “open, beautiful concourses,” and “new cladding for a classical look,” a USDOT release said. The design does not include moving Madison Square Garden.
Madison Square Garden and the entrance to Penn Station are pictured in 2023. (Luiz C. Ribeiro for New York Daily News)
“In selecting Penn Transformation Partners (Halmar) and their innovative plan, we are one step closer to delivering a world-class travel hub that daily commuters and travelers have dreamed of for decades,” Duffy said in a statement Wednesday.
“Under President Trump’s historic leadership, the days of Penn Station’s cramped hallways, broken infrastructure, and snarled rail lines are numbered.”