‘Train Daddy’ Returns to NYC With Penn Station Redevelopment Plans

After unburdening New York State from the colossal task of redeveloping Pennsylvania Station, the Trump administration is pushing forward with plans for the beleaguered transportation hub.

U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy and special adviser to Amtrak, Andy Byford, announced Wednesday that the administration would allocate $43 million in grant funding to overhaul Penn Station and make the nation’s largest transit facility into an architecturally notable site with the selection of a master developer.

Duffy and Byford said the selection process for the master developer would kick off on Thursday with an “aggressive” completion time frame, with hopes to have a developer chosen in 2026 and work to start in May 2027.

“This is not going to be a 20- to 30-year project,” Duffy said during a press conference. “This is not about a backroom [meeting], thinking about how we can spend money and develop plans to never deliver. This is actually about, ‘How do we move this more quickly and more beautifully through the process?’ It’s not your grandkids that are going to enjoy the work that we’re doing now. You all are going to enjoy this great project that we are about to announce.”

The decision to remove Penn Station’s management from the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) came in April, after years of work by the state that made some progress in beautifying the station’s crypt-like passageways and upgrading its infrastructure. But Gov. Kathy Hochul and the state transit agency had little objection to handing over control at the time.

“The transformation of Penn Station must be much more than bricks and mortar,” Byford said. “It must be about making the station operationally sound, safe, clean and easy to navigate. In the future, I want this station to ooze excellence in every form. I want every interaction with customers to be consistently excellent in every single aspect.”

Projects such as bringing Metro-North service to Penn Station will also be completed as planned by the MTA, according to Byford.

The federal takeover was projected to save taxpayers about $120 million. Most estimates by the state and various watchdogs have placed the price tag as high as $7.5 billion over the years.

The total cost of the redevelopment project under federal stewardship will be determined by preferred bids from master developers, according to Byford.

“One of the first things I raised with President Trump in January was the need to give New York City the beautiful Penn Station it deserves,” Hochul said in a statement following the announcement Wednesday. “Those conversations successfully secured federal funding in April to advance redevelopment, allowing us to reallocate over $1 billion for other critical projects. With Secretary Duffy now advancing this project and requesting design proposals, New Yorkers are one step closer to a station worthy of this great city.”

Financing the project was challenging for the state. Efforts fell through in mid-2023, when the Hochul administration and Vornado Realty Trust walked away from a public-private partnership that would have partially funded New York’s contribution through a payment in lieu of taxes arrangement.

Vornado would have received the green light to build a series of office towers around Penn Station, but ongoing distress in the office market at the time made the deal less attractive to the real estate investment trust. 

Byford served with the MTA as New York City Transit president, earning the beloved nickname “Train Daddy” from New Yorkers. His tenure, though, was short.

In 2020, Byford left MTA headquarters for the last time, claiming that pressure from then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo made doing the job untenable.

Mark Hallum can be reached at mhallum@commercialobserver.com.