{"id":260581,"date":"2026-06-09T14:42:25","date_gmt":"2026-06-09T14:42:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/260581\/"},"modified":"2026-06-09T14:42:25","modified_gmt":"2026-06-09T14:42:25","slug":"amtraks-penn-station-dog-and-pony-show-avoided-the-only-question-that-matters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/260581\/","title":{"rendered":"Amtrak\u2019s Penn Station Dog And Pony Show Avoided the Only Question That Matters"},"content":{"rendered":"

No money, mo\u2019 problems.<\/p>\n

Amtrak honchos officially showed off renderings for President Trump and Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy\u2019s renovation of Penn Station on Monday, but left unsaid amid the unveiling of pretty pictures was the only aspect of the Penn Station redevelopment that matters: How much will it cost, and who\u2019s paying?<\/a><\/p>\n

One possible answer: Tenant railroads Amtrak, the MTA and New Jersey Transit. According to the development company vice president Peter Cipriano (who was a senior adviser to the U.S. DOT during President Trump\u2019s first term), those tenants might have to pony up \u201cavailability payments\u201d to cover a share of the project costs.<\/p>\n

\u201cPresumably there will be some level of availability payment at the end of the road on this project, like Amtrak has on 30th Street Station in Philadelphia,\u201d the Halmar executive told reporters.<\/p>\n

This type of payment scheme \u2014 which the railroads will almost certainly pass on to their riders \u2014 was the linchpin of the Halmar\/ASTM plan<\/a> that Cipriano\u2019s team pitched the MTA in 2023. That plan would have involved Halmar and its parent company ASTM funding the renovation upfront, then collecting $250 million per year over 50 years from each over the three tenant railroads.<\/p>\n

But neither Cipriano nor Andy Byford, Amtrak\u2019s special adviser for Penn Station, would put a pricetag or timeline on the \u201cavailability payments.\u201d<\/p>\n

Byford, who has openly bragged<\/a> about using President Trump to strong-arm New York into accepting the project, insisted he would not allow an \u201cunaffordable\u201d funding scheme.<\/p>\n

\u201cI made it very clear in the RFP to the bidders: do not come with a proposal that saddles the railroads, of which Amtrak is obviously one, with unaffordable availability payments, because you won\u2019t get through, you will not win,\u201d said Byford. \u201cMy strategy is to minimize the gap between the overall cost and what we can raise through capital, like loans and grants, and what remains to be paid for via availability payments.\u201d<\/p>\n

One type of \u201cavailability payment\u201d that Byford insisted is not in play is a surcharge on train tickets for trips originating from Penn Station. But riders will wind up paying<\/a> in one way or the other if Amtrak plans to charge the railroads they ride, and the MTA is already raising objections to the proposal.<\/p>\n

\u201cGov. Hochul has been clear from the day President Trump took over this project: if he wants it, then he\u2019ll have to pay for it,\u201d said MTA spokesperson Mitch Schwartz. \u201cSecretary Duffy didn\u2019t have any problem with that arrangement when he told Congress that his administration was ready to \u2018give\u2019 Penn Station $8 billion \u2014 the full cost of the project. Now, they\u2019re admitting their real plan is to charge New York taxpayers billions. Their position may have changed. Ours hasn\u2019t: we\u2019re not interested in that deal.\u201d<\/p>\n

Amtrak held Monday\u2019s press briefing in order to reveal renderings of the project, some of which were previously published<\/a> in Gothamist. Cipriano, Byford and architect Vishaan Chakrabarti did not seem eager to discuss the project\u2019s funding despite a barrage of criticism and concerns from Manhattan pols<\/a> including Rep. Jerry Nadler.<\/p>\n

\t\t\tRecommended<\/p>\n

\t\t
\n \t\"Penn
\n \t\t<\/a><\/p>\n

Byford eventually copped to a vague total cost of between $7 billion and $8 billion \u2014 the reported price for the previous Halmar plan in 2023. Part of that cost included paying Madison Square Garden owner James Dolan $500 million to buy the Infosys Theater (formerly the Hulu Theater, formerly the Felt Forum) and knock it down to make way for a station entrance on the Eighth Avenue side of the station.<\/p>\n

Other wild cards remain in the offing: A recently passed amendment to the proposed federal Build America 250 Act would give Amtrak the power to seize local property tax funding to pay for station rehab projects.<\/p>\n

\"\"The redesign promises a grand interior. Rendering: Practice for Architecture And Urbanism<\/p>\n

The amendment is not yet law, but if it passes critics warn it will enable a federal land grab<\/a> that could allow real estate titan Vornado to redevelop the area and send its billions in property taxes that otherwise would have gone to New York City to pay for what is essentially a facelift for Penn Station. <\/p>\n

For his part, Cipriano suggested that proposed scheme was no different than what New York state had previously proposed for the project (something local critics also opposed).<\/p>\n

\u201cIf Amtrak got that authority, Andy would probably go through a process that looks somewhat similar to the one that [New York State] undertakes now. He would go to the city and say, \u2018This is what we want to do. Can we work together?\u2019 Should this thing get built, I think it\u2019s fair to speculate that the surrounding property values will go up,\u201d he said. \u201cPeople call that \u2018value uplift.\u2019 What we\u2019re talking about is Amtrak, by virtue of having delivered this, especially if the state\u2019s not participating in costs, Amtrak should get a piece of that value which it created. That\u2019s all. It\u2019s fair. It\u2019s done throughout the world,:<\/p>\n

Cipriano alluded to, but did not directly mention, the previous Penn Station redevelopment plan<\/a> floated by former Gov. Andrew Cuomo and briefly pursued by Gov. Hochul to do a similar value capture scheme in which New York seized zoning power around Penn Station through the creation of a land-use action called a General Project Plan.<\/p>\n

Through the GPP, the state planned to give Vornado the power to develop multiple office buildings around Penn, and pay payments in lieu of taxes to cover the costs of the Penn Station renovation. <\/p>\n

But the Cuomo-Hochul plan had built-in guardrail \u2014 including a chance for the state\u2019s Public Authorities Control Board to review plans for each parcel of land. Critics of the GPP and the House amendment passed last week threw cold water on Cipriano\u2019s benign spin.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe so-called \u2018Transit Oriented Development\u2019 amendment \u2026 is an unprecedented power grab from the Trump administration and Vornado to steal New York City tax revenues for what appears to be an unnecessarily expensive facelift for Penn Station,\u201d said Reinvent Albany Senior Policy Advisor Rachael Fauss. \u201cIt overrides all local authority over taxation and zoning in the area around Penn Station. Even if Amtrak did agree to consult with local officials, there is no requirement they do so and they could stop at any time if they don\u2019t like what they hear.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"No money, mo\u2019 problems. Amtrak honchos officially showed off renderings for President Trump and Secretary of Transportation Sean…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":260582,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[98,100,99,9,24,63,52479],"class_list":["post-260581","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn-headlines","tag-brooklyn-news","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-promoted"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260581","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=260581"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260581\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/260582"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=260581"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=260581"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=260581"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}