Despite rising construction estimates and at least a $1 billion funding gap, New York governor Eliot Spitzer remains committed to remaking Penn Station. At a press conference this week, The New York Sun wrote on February 13, he said that “‘real progress’ was being made in the planned overhaul”—and that the project would avoid the fate of the Javits Center expansion, a Richard Rogers design that was drastically scaled back last month. As RECORD has reported, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, Foster + Partners, and Kohn Pedersen Fox have been engaged to redesign the existing subterranean rail station in Midtown Manhattan and supplement it with a new hub, dubbed Moynihan Station, inside the Farley Post Office across the street; the postal building would also become home to a new Madison Square Garden arena. According to a February 12 article in the New York Post, the state has commitments for half of the $2.3 billion needed for overhauling the current station; the Farley Post Office portion could cost an additional $900 million and the total price tag is triple that of estimates made in 2006. Patrick Foyle, chairman of the Empire State Development Corporation, which oversees the project, said earlier this week that the state will seek “more funding from the developers, the Related Companies and Vornado Realty Trust, along with more city, state, and federal funds,” the Sun reported.

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