Amtrak and the Trump Administration Select a Halmar and Skanska-led Consortium to Redevelop Penn Station
If there is one cause New Yorkers can rally behind, it is improving the singularly miserable experience of commuting through Penn Station. That decades-long aspiration may now be realized. On May 20, Amtrak announced that a consortium led by construction giants Halmar International and Skanska had been selected as master developer to overhaul the busiest commuter hub in the western hemisphere.
The consortium, Penn Transformation Partners, includes design architect Practice for Architecture and Urbanism (PAU); executive architect HOK; Italian infrastructure management company ASTM; project and construction managers AECOM and Liro; and Vornado Realty Trust, which owns much of the surrounding neighborhood. The group was awarded the project following a competition announced last August.
What’s wrong with Penn Station? Almost everything.
The current station replaced McKim, Mead & White’s Beaux-Arts monumental depot (1910) with a subterranean maze of commuter and rapid transit lines capped by Madison Square Garden and a commercial office tower (1968). The downsizing was partially based on the mistaken assumption that daily ridership—then roughly 200,000 commuters—would remain flat or decline. Instead, passenger volumes tripled over the succeeding half century, swelling to 600,000.
Where visitors once passed through a soaring waiting room modeled after the Baths of Caracalla and a steel-and-glass-built train shed, they now navigate a dim labyrinth of passageways before reaching Midtown West.
Although specific design plans and renderings are yet to be released, Amtrak, in a statement, outlined several major changes. Madison Square Garden will remain in place, but its 5,500-seat theater will be removed to make way for a grand entrance on Eighth Avenue. Cramped hallways and notoriously confusing circulation will be replaced by spacious concourses. The project also promises to expand track capacity, which could enable through-running by commuter rail services—Penn station would function as a stop rather than a terminal. In keeping with the aesthetic preferences of the Trump administration, Madison Square Garden will be reclad in a “classical look.”
The revamped Penn Station will join several recent improvements to the transit complex, including the SOM-designed Long Island Railroad concourse and entryway (2020) and Moynihan Train Hall (2021).
The Federal government will provide $200 million to begin construction and has pledged $8 billion to the project overall. If all goes well, the renewed Penn Station will break ground by the end of 2027.
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