Fulton Street Transit Center

The MTA has posted the Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) for the Fulton Street Transit Center (FSTC). This is one of the major transit projects receiving Federal funding as part of the post-9/11 aid package.

The FSTC is a massive reconstruction of the Fulton-Broadway-Nassau station complex, the 9th busiest in the subway system, where the Broadway (2,3), Lexington (4,5), Eighth Avenue (A,C) and Nassau St (J,M,Z) Lines meet. It was originally four separate stations, constructed early in the 20th century by three competing companies that had no interest in working together. Free transfers between the lines were added when the city took over the entire subway system at mid-century, but the design of the complex was never rationalized. It is a bewildering array of ramps and staircases, with dozens of entrances, many of which are poorly located and far too narrow to accommodate peak passenger loads.

As part of this project:

The 2/3 and 4/5 stations, which are basically unchanged since they were built in the early 1900s, will be rehabilitated.

The A/C mezzanine will be totally rebuilt, eliminating a confusing series of ramps, and improving connections to the 2/3 and 4/5.

The whole station complex will become ADA compliant.

There will be a new "grand point of entry" on the east side of Broadway, between Fulton and John Streets. Five buildings on that block will be demolished, with only the historic Corbin Building (on the corner of John and Broadway) surviving.

There will be new entrances Broadway and Maiden Lane. The entrances on the west side of Broadway will be totally rebuilt, including a new headhouse at the corner of Dey and Broadway (with the low-rise building on the south corner of that intersection demolished). Most other entrances will be widened and made more accessible.

There will be a new underground passageway along Dey Street, connecting the complex to the World Trade Center.

There will be a new free transfer between the N/R and the E at the World Trade Center.

The MTA considered ten alternatives, of which two will receive further analysis in the Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS) later this year. The two surviving alternatives differ mainly in how they deal with the Corbin Building at the corner of John and Broadway. In one alternative, the Corbin Building is untouched; in the other, the Corbin building is acquired as part of the project, and integrated into the new entrance building along Broadway. The description in the DEIS strongly suggests that the MTA prefers this latter option.

Construction is set to start in late 2004, with completion in 2007.

Lower Manhattan Projects Advance

It has been a busy week for the Lower Manhattan rebuilding program. In a speech today before the Association before a Better New York, Governor Pataki gave his semi-annual report on progress downtown. As usual, he took the occasion to make a bit of news:

• Freedom Tower. Construction of the 1,776-foot skyscraper will begin on July 4, 2004, about two months earlier than previously announced.
• The Memorial. Schematic drawings will be completed by the end of 2004 and detailed drawings by the end of 2005, with construction to begin by 2006. Some $350 million will need to be raised to pay for it. Major League Baseball got the ball rolling with a $1 million contribution.
• Fulton Street Transit Center. Design of the new transit hub that will link 12 subway lines at the corner of Fulton & Broadway will be unveiled on May 26, 2004.
• Deutsche Bank Building. Demolition of the crippled shell that was once Deutsche Bank's (and, before that, Bankers Trust's) downtown headquarters will begin in the fall and be completed in 2005.
• West Street Promenade. The project intended to turn West Street into New York's version of the Champs-Elysee will begin in September, and the first section - from Washington Street to West Thames Street - will be complete by the end of 2005.
• South Ferry Terminal. A new subway terminal at South Ferry has completed initial design and should open by 2007. The project will replace an antiquated subway station dating from 1905, and will also provide a new free transfer to the Whitehall Street Station on the Broadway Line.
• Battery Park Ferry Terminal. Construction on a new Battery Park City Ferry Terminal has begun, with completion scheduled for 2006.

Pataki also elaborated on plans leaked to the press earlier in the week for a JFK-LIRR-Lower Manhattan Rail Link. The Governor favors a new East River tunnel, which (along with infrastructure on either side of the river) would cost at least $6.0 billon. No one yet knows where such a vast sum would come from, but Pataki pledged to begin the environmental review process this summer, and to find the money somehow before that process is completed. The study will also consider using the existing Montague Street Tunnel, which serves M and R trains today, but has some spare capacity. The Montague option, although less expensive, would severely constrict the subway system's capacity to grow or adapt to service outages.

The Governor believes the new tunnel could be operational by 2013. He says it would carry 100,000 passengers a day and would result in an increased economic output of $6 to 8 billion annually in Lower Manhattan and Brooklyn, and as much as $9 to 12 billion in the region as a whole. You can expect that there will be plenty of skeptics wondering where those figures come from.

Silverstein's Loss is Lower Manhattan's Gain

Yesterday, developer Larry A. Silverstein lost yet another battle to collect a double insurance payment for the loss of the World Trade Center towers. Silverstein, who signed a lease for the property six fateful weeks before 9/11, argued that each airplane attack was a "separate occurrence," entitling him to a double recovery. Had that argument prevailed, Silvertstein would have been entitled to a whopping $7.0 billion payout, which he would have used to erect a glut of office space in Lower Manhattan.

The property was covered by a consortium of insurers, and the dispute has turned on which of two coverage forms, or "binders," was in effect on 9/11. It's a complex skein to unravel, because Silverstein negotiated with many insurers simultateously, and each one might have had a different understanding of what they were agreeing to cover. But one after another, courts and juries have held that Silverstein's insurance treated 9/11 as a single event.

There are still a few insurers for which the issue has yet to be decided, but even if Silverstein wins every remaining battle--which is highly unlikely given his track record thus far--the most he could collect is $4.68 billion. However, he has aleady collected $1.9 billion, of which $1.6 billion has gone to legal fees and rent payments.

The bottom line is that there will be far less insurance money to rebuild the World Trade Center than Silverstein and the Port Authority had expected. While that's undoubtedly bad news for Silverstein, it's good news for the city. As it is, Silverstein has two massive projects underway at the site: 7 World Trade Center (already under construction) and the 1,776-foot-tall Freedom Tower (to be started shortly). Neither has attracted a principal tenant. The last thing we need is for Silverstein to continue this glut of construction, as he had every intention of doing, despite the clear lack of appreciable demand.

Silverstein swears that he will continue to rebuld anyway, up to the 10 million square feet of commercial space he controlled previously. But no bank will lend Silverstein the money for more office towers until it's demonstrated he can fill them, and for the foreseeable future that seems highly unlikely.

Last year, the Port Authority bought out Westfield America, who had held the lease on the retail mall at the Trade Center. Westfield was balking at plans to build street-level retail, preferring to duplicate the subterranean mall that was on the site before 9/11. Getting rid of Westfield simplified matters for everybody. With Silverstein now losing money hand over fist in lease payments to the Port Authority, and with no chance of him rebuilding all of the lost space anytime soon, Silverstein becomes increasingly irrelevant.

I wouldn't be surprised to see him out of the picture, or with his influence severely curtailed, by year's end.

JFK Airlink: Two Weeks and Counting

In January, the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation announced four design alternatives for bringing JFK Airport and LIRR trains to the World Trade Center, with the preferred alternative to be announced in April. It's mid-April, so we should know their decision within the next two weeks.

According to Newsday, the LMDC is leaning strongly towards contributing the $1.2 billion remaining in its coffers to the JFK-LIRR rail link. Multiple surveys (e.g., see here) have shown that the community would prefer to see that sum devoted to broader-based initiatives, such as affordable housing, job training, parks, and so forth.

I wouldn't necessarily put much weight in surveys, as the average person doesn't really appreciate the economic effects of building a new rail line, but the impact of repairing a dilapidated sidewalk is immediately visible to all. As the LMDC has already spent $2.3 billion on the kind of tactical initiatives the community prefers, perhaps it is not unjust to commit the remaining $1.2 billion to a Big Idea that could be transformational in the way that little grants here-and-there cannot.

But even the lowest estimates put the cost of a JFK-LIRR downtown rail link at $2.0 billion. History shows that initial guesses for projects of this complexity are usually wildly off-the-mark. If the real cost is more like $5.0 billion, then the LMDC's contribution only gets us 25% of the way there. What's good is that?

Even more important than the actual design is whether there's any way of paying for it. Let's hope that it's not all smoke-and-mirrors, like the Mayor's Far West Side development program.

The Statue of Limitations

Mayor Bloomberg and Interior Secretary Gale Norton have announced that the Statue of Liberty will re-open in August. Visitors have been able to go to Liberty Island, but the Statue itself has been closed since the 9/11 attacks, while it was retrofitted with enhanced security and a new emergency staircase.

The cost of the renovation was covered by some $19.6 million in public money and about $7 million in private donations, with Mayor Bloomberg himself ponying up $100,000. The New York Daily News also threw in $100,000, while raising $60,000 more from its readers.

There's a catch: the public will be admitted only to the Statue's 16-story pedastal. For now, and possibly forever, the steps leading up to the Statue's crown will be closed. Secretary Norton claimed that the Statue's designer "never intended visits to the inside of Lady Liberty." Intended or not, the long climb was a rite of passage for visitors to NYC, although the old joke was that natives almost never did it. I myself made the climb twice, both times as a tourist. My son will evidently never have that chance.

It's a cliché to say that "the terrorists have won," but this time that just might be true.

Rebuilding Official Lukewarm on NYCO Downtown Home

This week's issue of Downtown Express offers a comprehensive progress report on post-9/11 rebuilding.

I was especially struck by Madelyn Wils's article, "Finding the right arts mix at the new W.T.C." Wils, who heads Community Board 1 and is on the board of the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, surely has an insider's view of the rebuilding process.

The article talked about the cultural institutions that the LMDC has shortlisted for the cultural institution to be built at the WTC. Of the New York City Opera, she said:

The New York City Opera has aggressively pursued a Downtown home. They could be a welcome addition on the site, but it is still unclear whether they physically fit. If they do, the question is would it be in lieu of other organizations that might have more direct impact on the community? The opera's programming may be successful Downtown, but how this 2,200-seat theater would be used when the opera is not in season is still unanswered. It would not be in anyone's interest to have a performing arts complex that is dark much of the year.

That doesn't sound like a ringing endorsement.

West Side Stadium Plan to be Unveiled

The NYT reports that the New York Jets, Governor Pataki, and Mayor Bloomberg will unveil plans tomorrow to build a new stadium for the Jets on the far West Side of Manhattan. The stadium would be sited between 11th & 12th Avenues, and between 30th and 34th Streets, over the MTA rail yards.

There has been no professional football in Manhattan since the New York Titans lost to Buffalo on December 14, 1963, at the Polo Grounds. The Titans (later renamed the Jets) moved to Shea Stadium the following season, and to the Meadowlands home they now share with the Giants in 1984. The Jets' lease expires in 2008, and construction would need to get underway promptly if they're to have any hope of moving by then.

The stadium is also critical to the city's long-shot bid for the 2012 Summer Olympics. The IOC is to choose a host city by next summer, and New York wants to demonstrate that promised infrastructure is already well underway. Recent troubles in Athens, which is struggling to complete construction for the 2004 Summer Games, will probably make the IOC skittish about vaporware subway lines and stadiums that exist only on paper.

Yet, the Bloomberg Administration needs to be careful not to couch these projects as solely an Olympics play, because a majority of New Yorkers don't seem to want the games. The City thinks its West Side projects will more than pay for themselves in increased property tax revenues, even if, as most observers expect, the 2012 Olympics go elsewhere. (The IOC has already awarded the 2010 Winter Games to Vancouver, and generally the IOC voters don't award consecutive Games to the same continent.)

The far West Side (8th to 11th avenues, 27th to 42nd Streets) is the last great urban renewal opportunity in midtown. The Jacob Javits Center was supposed to herald the area's rebirth when it was built in the 1980s, but it never happened. That's partly because the Javits is too small to host many larger conventions (it is only the 18th largest convention center in the U.S.), and partly because the West Side is not easily reachable by mass transit. Today, the Javits stands alone, surrounded by tenement housing, derelict space, and the MTA rail yards.

The gorgeous watercolor rendering on the NYT site shows a West Side reborn. A new 75,00-seat stadium with a retractable roof would be built over a deck covering the MTA rail yards. The Javits would be extended two blocks north, to 40th Street. New hotels, office towers, restaurants, and park space would transform what is now Manhattan's least desirable neighborhood south of Central park.

The Javits extension is a no-brainer; virtually no one opposes it. There are dozens of conventions every year that New York can't even bid for, because the Javits is outgunned by larger convention centers in other cities. For New York to lack a competitive convention center is simply unacceptable.

The Jets stadium, however, is more controversial. America has been on a stadium-building orgy for the last twenty-five years, much of it with public money. Many studies question whether the investment is worth it, particularly for pro football stadiums, which are used for only ten dates a year. Anticipating criticism, the City describes it as a multi-use facility, which could host rock concerts, conventions, and big-ticket sporting events like the Super Bowl and the Final Four. (Of course, the City already has Madison Square Garden, which can host many of these events now, although obviously not a Super Bowl.)

The other problem is traffic. The City believes that most Jets patrons would reach the stadium by mass transit, but not everyone is convinced. Given that most people use their cars to reach the Meadowlands today, the skepticism is amply justified. Expect the environmental impact statement to receive plenty of scrutiny.

To give the Jets credit, they are offering to put in $800 million of their own money. In this respect, the Jets stand apart from the mine run of sports team owners that have threatened to take their teams elsewhere unless lavish stadiums were built for them. Still, the project (including the Javits extension) will require about $2.0 billion in public money, which the state and the city will need to raise from various sources, not all of which have been identified.

As I've mentioned previously, the city intends to fund the project, in part, through a device known as tax increment financing. The basic idea is that the city borrows the money and pays it back through increased property tax revenues later on. Although the technique has worked in other communities, it has never been attempted on anything remotely approaching the scale required here.

I remain intrigued by the West Side development project, but agnostic on whether the numbers add up. I am also concerned about whether office towers on the Far West Side would impair Lower Manhattan's rebirth as a competitive as a business district. Stay tuned.

Debate Rages on Downtown Rail Link Funding

Articles over the weekend in both The New York Times and Downtown Express (here and here) discussed the prickly subject of how to pay for a rail link between Lower Manhattan and Queens, which could bring a faster transit connection to JFK airport and LIRR riders. Downtown business interests describe the rail link as essential, but residents and workers have given the idea a tepid response.

The Lower Manhattan Development Corporation has slightly less than $1.2bn of its post-9/11 funding left. LMDC officials are cagey on their intentions, but evidently the Act of Congress that appropriated the money would permit the LMDC to shoot the wad on just one project, if that's what the LMDC board decides.

I'm a supporter of the JFK-LIRR-downtown project, which could indeed transform Lower Manhattan, but we need to find some other way to pay for it. Even if LMDC puts all its eggs in this basket, it won't even come close to fully paying for the project. (Well, it would if you believe the low-end estimates of $2.0bn, but I don't think it can be done for under $4.0bn.)

The LMDC has done a good job so far allocating its resources to smaller initiatives: a Chinatown study here, a housing grant there. Throwing all its weight behind one rail link that, even in the best of scenarios, won't see service for another decade, would be the wrong way to go.

Meantime, the MTA is to tell us sometime in April which of four design options for the rail link will be chosen for further development. Expect plenty of controversy, no matter which way the decision goes. I think this project is less than 50-50 to actually get built.