Halmar Tapped by Amtrak for $8 Billion Penn Station Redo; MSG Won’t Have to Move

The Trump administration announced that it will rebuild Penn Station with Madison Square Garden remaining on top, but reclad in a “classic look” and with a new train hall on Eighth Avenue where the Madison Square Garden theater is now.

A consortium led by Halmar International was selected to be the Master Developer, Amtrak’s private partner in the repeatedly differed retooling of the cramped and crowded station. Penn Station is the nation’s busiest commuter rail terminal operates every day at three times its original capacity.

In its announcement, Amtrak said the plan would also “expand track capacity, including the introduction of at least limited through running on the regional rail network.”

That rail network is run, of course, not by the federal government but by New Jersey Transit and the Long Island Railroad. New Jersey Transit, in particular, has wanted to expand the station to the south, but neighborhood and transit advocates have proposed instead integrating the commuter rail operations to run trains through the station to points on either side.

“Not only is the winning redesign for New York Penn Station beautiful, but the changes to the station will more importantly increase the capacity of what is already America’s busiest transit hub, allowing commuters and visitors alike to reach their destinations more easily,” according to the Deputy U. S. Transportation Secretary, Steve Bradbury.

He did not detail how this would be accomplished.

Samuel Turvey, a leading proponent of through running, noted that Halmar has never proposed tearing down the block to the south, sometimes known by its tax number, block 780. One iteration of its plan offered a rebuilding of the tracks and platforms to accommodate more trains in the same space, Turvey noted.

Halmar is the American subsidiary of the Italian Developer ASTM and has been offering versions of its plan since 2022, well before the Trump administration stepped in to seize control of the project from the MTA. Their winning consortium also includes Vornado Realty Trust, which owns much of the property around Penn Station.

Steven Roth, the ceo of Vornado, is a supporter of President Trump and is said to have met with the president along with the owner of Madison Square Garden, James Dolan.

A few weeks ago, The New York Post reported that the president had called the newspaper and endorsed a plan for Penn Station that sounded very much like Halmar’s plan.

In awarding the project to the Halmar consortium the administration passed over a group backed by another supporter, Tom Klingenstein, who proposed moving the Garden to construct a park and a train hall with echoes of the original McKim Mead and White original, notoriously torn down in the 1960s.

Dolan repeatedly said he did not want to move the Garden.

The announcement offered no total price tag. In a senate hearing Tuesday secretary Duffy said, “we’re going to give $8 billion to rebuild Penn Station.”

But he made that statement in a pique of anger at Senator Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, who was chastising him for bragging about cutting transit aid to New York and joking about it.

“Is that a joke?” Duffy replied, referring to the Penn Station funding. “You welcome that, right?”

Eight billion has often been cited as a ballpark estimate of the cost of rebuilding Penn station. But Andy Byford, Amtrak’s man in charge of the project, has repeatedly said he is looking for contributions from both New York and New Jersey as well as New York City.

So, it was not clear whether Duffy was saying the Federal government was planning to pay an entire $8 billion price tag, or that the price was even higher and the feds would pay $8 billion.

New York State had been planning to put up one billion dollars. But when the Feds kicked the MTA off the project Governor Kathy Hochul withdrew the money.

The announcement noted that New Jersey Transit was working with Amtrak on the project and had kicked in money. But the only mention of the MTA was ferociously hostile.

“We took over the transformation of New York Penn Station because the project was behind schedule, over budget, and hopelessly mismanaged,” said the US transportation secretary, Sean Duffy. “One year later, we continue to hit major milestones at record speed,” said U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean P. Duffy. In selecting Penn Transformation Partners (Halmar) and their innovative plan, we are one step closer to delivering a world-class travel hub that daily commuters and travelers have dreamed of for decades. Under President Trump’s historic leadership, the days of Penn Station’s cramped hallways, broken infrastructure, and snarled rail lines are numbered. 2027 can’t come soon enough.”

At the MTA, Janno Lieber, the chairman & ceo, said the MTA has not had any discussion with the federal government about the new plan. He noted that the plan the MTA had been working on before the Trump Administration intervened would have cost far less than $8 billion.

While Amtrak owns the station, the LIRR is the largest user. Lieber stressed that passengers were very happy with the renovation of the LIRR councourse that the railroads spent several hundred million dollars on.

He said that under the MTA’s lease, which he said runs for 130 years, Amtrak and Halmar can’t touch the LIRR portion of the station without the railroad’s agreement.

Byford said Amtrak was still on schedule to begin construction late next year. He has promised extensive community consultation, along with the required federal environmental review, which includes public hearings.

Earlier versions of the Halmar plan offered a modern look. But President Trump has said he favors a revival of classical architecture in public buildings and the announcement used the word “classic” to describe the look of the winning plan, including the cladding of Madison Square Garden.

“The new design,” said Amtrak, “takes inspiration from this lost architectural gem,” referring to the original station, “while fitting with the major structures there currently, particularly Madison Square Garden and Moynihan Train Hall.”

No new renderings were released with the announcement. [The rendering included with the story is from the original redesign plan released by the developer last year.]

Halmar was one of three finalists for the Master Developer role. In addition to Klingenstein’s Grand Penn Partners, led by the developer, Macquarie, with architect Alex Washburn and the Grand Penn Community Alliance, a third group, Penn Forward Now, was a late entry. They were led by the Canadian firm, Fengate and associated with Skidmore, Owings and Merrill. Little was known of their plans.

The Trump administration made its announcement as Lieber was holding a news conference after the regular MTA Board meeting. He said that he knew nothing about the plan the Feds had just released.

But he pointed out that the plan is for the master developer to operate in what is known as a Public Private Partnership, or P3, a system that has been used for major infrastructure projects, including the rebuilding of terminals at Kennedy and LaGuardia airports. These P3s are noteworthy because the private developer is not just a contractor, but a financial partner in the project.

“One of the first questions is what are the financial commitments being made by a proposed developer,” Lieber said. “What equity are they putting on the table?

What are the standards in terms of delivery or schedule? Commitments that are being made that their compensation is contingent on? Those are all feature of a standard p3.”

Advocates have warned that the long term costs of such a relationship could end up creating financial obligations for taxpayers or transit riders, something Byford has said he is working to avoid.

Governor Hochul welcomed the news while not embracing the choice.

“Today’s announcement selecting a master developer is another important step in the Penn reconstruction process, and I plan to thoroughly review the proposal in the weeks ahead,” she said.

“To be successful, this project must accomplish two things: dramatically improve the experience for every rider who passes through Penn Station, from the A train to the Acela, while protecting the record performance of the LIRR and ensuring the costs are not borne by New York commuters or taxpayers,” she said.

Hochul was not the only one who withheld endorsement. The chief planner for the Grand Penn Community Alliance, the group Tom Klingenstein funded to support moving Madison Square Garden to create a park and new train hall like the original, appeared to be ready to fight the selection of Halmar.

“We are deeply disappointed that Amtrak has chosen a design for Penn Station that lacks the vision and scale of a truly transformative classical architectural new Penn Station,” said the planner, Robert Yaro. “This is a once-in-a-century opportunity to create a world-class transportation hub that could improve the lives of not only the passengers who pass through it, but those who live and work in Midtown Manhattan, by leading to a renaissance of the neighborhood.”