Four top architecture firms presented renderings of a redesigned Penn Station and a separate redesigned Madison Square Garden.

The firms, SHoP Architects, H3 Hardy Architecture, Diller, Scofidio + Renfro and SOM, were hand-picked by the Municipal Arts Society to take part in a design challenge.

SHoP principal architect Gregg Pasquarelli noted the need for an expanded Penn Station is getting increasingly imperative as the station was built for 120,000 users a day and is now seeing five times that amount.

“We wanted to make something… that was uniquely New York,” Pasquarelli said of SHoP’s design, “so it was really about opening up the tracks to the sky, letting light come through, connecting to the neighborhood and building density all around the train station.”

MAS has joined with the Regional Plan Association to form the Alliance for a New Penn Station.

MAS President Vin Cipolla emphasized that the relocation of Madison Square Garden is necessary for any improvements to Penn Station, as the Garden is supported by more than 1,100 columns that extend down to the tracks.

The Garden’s permit for that location just expired, and they are now applying for a special permit that would allow them to remain at the site permanently. Cipolla, and the architects behind these renderings, see this as a critical opportunity: If the Garden gets that permit, they say, a new Penn Station will be impossible.

“This is our one shot,” Pasquarelli said. “We’ve got to make this happen. It’s critical for the future of New York.”

Follow Danielle Tcholakian on Twitter @danielleiat

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Four of the city’s top architecture firms Wednesday morning unveiled design ideas for a new Penn Station—and a separate Madison Square Garden.

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  PHOTOS: The New Penn Station

The renderings are part of a design challenge put out by the Municipal Arts Society, which has joined with the Regional Plan Association to form the Alliance for a New Penn Station.

The firms, SHoP Architects, H3 Hardy Architecture, SOM, and Diller, Scofidio + Renfro, handpicked by MAS, had less than two months to come up with their designs, according to Vin Cipolla, MAS president.

“There are many great firms in the city,” Cipolla said. “But these four in particular have worked in very, very complex urban contexts, and all four have experience with this particular part of Manhattan.”

The architects behind the renderings presented today spoke excitedly about the prospect of redesigning the largest transit hub in North America.

“This is a once-in-a-century opportunity to right the wrong of what happened to Penn Station,” said SHoP principal architect Gregg Pasquarelli, “to get Penn Station out from being a basement space and give it the kind of space and civic nature that is appropriate for the busiest train station in the United States.”

SHoP’s design is airy and bright, with soaring ceilings letting in natural light, quite the opposite of the current Penn Station. In their proposal, a hyper-modern, almost futuristic Madison Square Garden is moved over to the site of a mail storage facility a few blocks away—not the iconic 8th Avenue post office.

SHoP Architects’ vision of a new Madison Square Garden. Credit: SHoP Architects.

John Fontillas, a partner at H3, was most excited at the opportunity to ready Penn Station for the advent of high-speed rail—an inevitability, he said.

With Boston or D.C. 90 minutes away on high-speed rail, Fontillas said, “you could go to Boston, have a business meeting, and be back in time for dinner.”

“It makes Penn Station the center not just of the city but of the entire east coast, the entire Northeast Corridor,” he enthused.

“We’re New Yorkers,” said Fontillas. “Why do we have to settle for something that’s second-rate, that’s substandard?”

H3 envisions Madison Square Garden at a waterfront location near the Javits Center, capitalizing on the proximity to tourists and convention-goers and making “a new identity for the Garden.”

H3′s imagining of a waterfront Madison Square Garden. Credit: H3 Hardy Architecture.

Both Fontillas and Pasquarelli emphasized the economic benefit to the area.

“Yes, it would cost money, but the real estate value that you would unlock… would be immense to us,” Fontillas said.

“The most sustainable thing you can do is not to hang solar panels all over your building or have hybrid cars, but to put [population] density next to mass transit,” Pasquarelli explained. “The fact that you have a completely underbuilt area around the busiest transit station in the country in a travesty.”

SHoP’s design would ultimately pay for itself, Pasquarelli explained.

“Our project not only looks at making great and inspiring designs but also looks at how to pay for them by… unlocking the development rights which is not only a smart, sustainable, green objective,” he said, “you can [also] use the tax dollars generated there to pay for the infrastructure of the station.”

The plans are ambitious in their design, but also in their very existence—while the operating permit Madison Square Garden had for that location has expired, they are now applying for a permit that would allow them to remain above the train station permanently.

MAS and the architects behind these designs say that such a permit would kill any hopes of ever turning Penn Station into a 21st century train station.

An aerial view of Diller Scofidio + Renfro’s Penn Station at night. Credit: Diller Scofidio + Renfro.

The Alliance is pushing for MSG to receive a 10-year term permit, also recommended by Community Board 5, Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer and State Senator Brad Hoylman. They say this would give the Garden enough time to relocate and rebuild.

The City Planning Commission recently made a recommendation for a 15-year permit, which was at first encouraging to the Penn Station visionaries, until they discovered the recommendation contains a provision that would allow MSG to obtain an in perpetuity permit by striking a deal with the railroads that operate within Penn Station, requiring only the signoff of the planning department and no public review.

Cipolla dismissed resistance to a new Penn Station as cynical, and said the status quo is “completely unsustainable.”

“We cannot go on with Penn Station in its existing condition,” Cipolla said. “It’s environmentally unsafe, way over capacity, and cannot meet the needs of a growing population.”

A view of SOM’s new Penn Station, from the steps of the 8th Avenue post office. Credit: SOM.

Cipolla noted that while the arena has been in its current location for 50 years, this is far from its original location: the Garden was first at the site of its namesake park, and then was moved to 50th Street and 8th Avenue before relocating to sit above Penn Station.

He stressed that MAS and the architects care deeply about the future of the Garden as well as the train station.

“We all love Madison Square Garden and want there to be a world-class arena in Manhattan,” he said. If the plan for a New Penn Station moved forward, and the Garden could be relocated and rebuilt, “Manhattan, like Brooklyn, would get a 21st-century arena.”

The next step in the process will be a public hearing with the City Council in June, where the Alliance hopes to persuade the Council to vote for a 10-year permit when the vote comes around in July.

Follow Danielle Tcholakian on Twitter @danielleiat

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The new development being built at the site of the old Domino Sugar Factory will be specially constructed to withstand  hurricanes and flooding, Brownstoner reports.

The first line of defense is set to be the buildings’ distance from the coastal line, according to the NY Post, which has been pushed back to 150 feet from the originally-planned 50 feet.

The waterfront area will also be covered largely by parkland and grass, with very little pavement, which is intended to “act as a sponge” in the event of flooding.

Both utilities rooms and building entryways will be elevated: building mechanical equipment will be positioned on the second story of the structures, and the addition of stairways and the pushing of the project uphill will hopefully prevent flooding from seeping — or pouring, as it did during superstorm Sandy — into buildings.

The elimination of cul-de-sacs on the walkways, replaced by pedestrian walkways connecting the street to the waterfront, also aims to remove the potentially for water collection, and allow stormwaters to runoff from the streets into the river.

Brownstoner predicted that these steps could be a model for future waterfront development in the city.

A principal at SHoP Architects, the design firm responsible for the new vision, said, “This project will prove that we can continue to do waterfront development in the city and not have to run from the water.”

Follow Danielle Tcholakian on Twitter @danielleiat

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Two Trees Management Company, the developers for the controversial site of the old Domino Sugar Factory in Williamsburg, released a new plan for the waterfront site today, designed by SHoP Architects.

Two Trees is best known for their development work in DUMBO, and the Domino Sugar Factory site is best known for the degree to which neighborhood residents fought its development. While there are already previously approved plans in place, those plans were, Curbed noted, met with such ire that the new SHoP plans were sought in an effort to ameliorate public sentiment on the project.

The new SHoP plan has less residential space and fewer residential units, more office space, less retail space, fewer parking spaces, vastly more public open space, taller buildings, and an overall 230,256 more gross square feet — and that’s just by the numbers.

The proposal outlines a mixed-use complex that would be active 24/7, and include integrated affordable housing and new tree-lined pedestrian walkways connecting the waterfront to the street, rather than circuits of closed internal walkways.

Two Trees is planning for 500,000 square feet of new office space, hoping to host 3000 to 4000 more permanent jobs. The figure has a historical connection: it would return the site to its peak level of jobs once hosted at the factory: more than 4,000 in the early 20th century, reportedly. The figure declined to 1,500 after World War II and less than 300 in 2001.

It will also include a school, a recreation center, and opportunities for “small, independent retailers.”

Outdoor enthusiasts can look forward to over five acres of park space, including sports fields, lawns, gardens and seating areas, and an “activated” waterfront esplanade with a kayak launch and a floating pool.

And for those who still fret about the loss of neighborhood history, the plan details the preservation of historic factory artifacts, including cranes and syrup tanks, to be incorporated into an elevated “artifact walk” that apparently aims to be the High Line of Williamsburg.

And true to the Williamsburg spirit, the architects boast that their plan will mean fewer cars, more bikes: something all the fixed-gear riders can cheer about.

Follow Danielle Tcholakian on Twitter @danielleiat

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