The City Planning Commission approved a request this morning to allow Vornado to transfer air rights and receive a zoning bonus for a planned office tower it has proposed building on the site of the Pennsylvania Hotel.
“This is the right kind of development for this site,” said Kenneth Knuckles, the vice chairman of the commission at a hearing this morning in lower Manhattan.
Following praise from the commission’s chair, Amanda Burden, all of the commission’s members voted to approve the project, known as the 15 Penn Plaza Development, except for commissioner Alfred Cerullo, who recused himself from the vote.
The approval will allow Vornado to transfer air rights to the development from the Manhattan Mall, a nearly 800,000 square foot retail complex the company owns nearby on Sixth Avenue. It will also allow it to receive additional square footage in exchange for making $150 million in transit improvements, including most notably a plan to restore the Gimbels Corridor, a pedestrian transit tunnel between Penn State and Herald Square that was shuttered decades ago.
Now that the Planning Commission has approved the project, Vornado’s plan moves on to its final hurdle, the City Council, which has 50 days to weigh in on the project. A source said that the council would likely vote on 15 Penn Plaza by mid August. Usually, the council cedes its decision on a development to the council member whose district the project is in, in this case the Council Speaker Christine Quinn. Quinn hasn’t yet voiced open support for 15 Penn Plaza but has approved other large-scale development projects in her district such as the development of the West Side rail yards.
Vornado’s zoning bonuses will allow it to build a tower up a little over 2 million square feet in size and 1,216 feet tall, a height that would make it the third tallest tower in the city after One World Trade Center – when that building is completed – and the Empire State Building. Without the additions to square footage, Vornado can currently can build a tower about 1.15 million square feet in size on the hotel site.
In April, according to reports, the local community board, Community Board 5, voted overwhelmingly against the project because of its size.
An additional obstacle of course will be finding a tenant to anchor the skyscraper, a necessary prerequisite so that Vornado can be assured of the project’s financial viability. Vornado had a deal to bring Merrill Lynch to the building, but the deal was scuttled when the economy slipped into a recession and Merrill was swept to the brink of collapse during the downturn.
A person familiar with the development said that Vornado wants to have its approvals in place at the site so that it can more quickly be ready to begin the development should it be able to secure a tenant for the project as the economy recovers. The Pennsylvania Hotel continues to operate at the site and Vornado would have to demolish the 1,700-room hotel before it can go into the ground with the new tower.