{"id":171556,"date":"2026-03-22T23:21:35","date_gmt":"2026-03-22T23:21:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/171556\/"},"modified":"2026-03-22T23:21:35","modified_gmt":"2026-03-22T23:21:35","slug":"train-daddy-keeps-door-open-to-private-deals-in-penn-station-redesign","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/171556\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Train Daddy’ keeps door open to private deals in Penn Station redesign"},"content":{"rendered":"

Penn Station\u2019s long-promised makeover could still include private real-estate deals, according to New York City\u2019s \u201cTrain Daddy\u2019\u2019 <\/a>\u2014 prompting a watchdog group to warn that may be bad news for Big Apple taxpayers.<\/p>\n

Project leader Andy Byford \u2014 the ex-NYC Transit boss known as \u201cTrain Daddy\u201d \u2014 recently insisted to The Post in an interview that riders will not end up paying for the project, while keeping the door open on potential private related deals.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt ain\u2019t going to be easy, but Train Daddy likes a challenge,\u201d Byford said.<\/p>\n

\u201cTrain Daddy\u201d Andy Byford is helming the Penn Station rebuild in Manhattan. Getty Images<\/p>\n

He said the three bidders vying to be the project\u2019s master developer are being encouraged<\/a> to pitch \u201cimaginative ideas\u201d \u2014 including new commercial activity inside the station and through development of the surrounding area.<\/p>\n

Byford described a future Penn Station that is brighter and easier to navigate, with high ceilings, natural daylight filtering down to the concourse, clearer signage and \u201cworld\u2011class retail\u201d that makes the station a destination rather than the dungeon it currently is.<\/p>\n

\u201cLet\u2019s at least hear what these bidders have to say, and then we can either accept what they\u2019ve got to say or not,\u201d Byford said about Amtrak\u2019s Penn Station transformation.<\/p>\n

President Trump yanked the station redesign away from the MTA last year and handed to it Amtrak so the project would move along faster. Luiz C. Ribeiro for New York Post<\/p>\n

He added that the estimated $7 billion project is still on track to break ground in 2027 \u2014 as originally promised when President Trump yanked the redesign away<\/a> from the MTA and handed to it Amtrak last year so the project would move along faster.<\/p>\n

Byford stressed Amtrak has \u201cno plans whatsoever\u201d to tack a surcharge onto tickets and said a panel he sits on can simply reject any proposal that doesn\u2019t work for riders.<\/p>\n

But government watchdog Reinvent Albany said megadeals could echo a doomed earlier then-Gov. Andrew-Cuomo-era plan to fix Penn Station largely with funds from developer Vornado.<\/p>\n

Under that proposal, Vornado would have made payments for the station\u2019s upgrade \u2014 as long as it could build a ring of new local office towers and in lieu of taxes on them.<\/p>\n

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said the new station will be \u201cworld-class.\u201d AP<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are a lot of ifs here,\u201d said Rachel Fauss, senior policy adviser at Reinvent Albany, to The Post.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIf Amtrak is going to move forward with a project team that has a partner like Vornado, they\u2019re going to be asking New York to hand over development rights, and New York will pay for that in lost tax revenue.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n

Final redesign plans won\u2019t be unveiled until June, after the master developer is selected in May.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Penn Station\u2019s long-promised makeover could still include private real-estate deals, according to New York City\u2019s \u201cTrain Daddy\u2019\u2019 \u2014…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":171557,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[4894,5865,75,84,83,57,141,9,24,63,7968,87,142,58],"class_list":["post-171556","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-manhattan","tag-andy-byford","tag-infrastructure","tag-manhattan","tag-manhattan-headlines","tag-manhattan-news","tag-metro","tag-mta","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-penn-station","tag-politics","tag-transit","tag-us-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171556","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=171556"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171556\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/171557"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=171556"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=171556"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=171556"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}