Steve Roth, the chairman of the Vornado Realty Trust, told a quarterly luncheon yesterday of the Real Estate Board of New York that the city should "upzone Park Avenue, a suggestion he had made in an annual letter to his investors last year," according to an article last night at therealdeal.com by Sarabeth Sanders.
The article said that Mr. Roth said that many commercial buildings on the avenue in midtown are "hanging on by their fingernails to being technologically obsolete and that by rezoning the avenue older existing buildings could be torn down and replaced with larger, new ones." Such a policy, he said, has been implemented in London "quite successfully," the article said.
The article said that Mr. Roth said that "nobody listened" to his suggestion last year.
Roth also "slammed New Jersey Governor Chris Christie for cancelling the planned Hudson River Rail Tunnel between New York and New Jersey. (Vornado owns Penn Station.) 'The principal purpose of governing is to provide infrastructure, and I hate to say it, but in this scenario, the Governor is flunking,' Roth said. 'We need to augment the amount of traffic that can come in by rail from New Jersey... somehow or other I hope it happens,'" the article said.
One of Vornado's current projects involves demolished the Hotel Pennsylvania on Seventh Avenue between 32nd and 33rd Streets to built a very tall office building to be known as 15 Penn Plaza, what Mr. Roth called "the most famous unbuilt building in
America, the article said, adding that Vornado is now" trolling for a tenant" for the project.
Mr. Roth, the article added, also said that Vornado's "planned 1.5-million-square-foot tower atop the Port Authority Bus Terminal may now be able to proceed on spec, thanks to a new capital partner."
The article said that Mr. Roth said that many commercial buildings on the avenue in midtown are "hanging on by their fingernails to being technologically obsolete and that by rezoning the avenue older existing buildings could be torn down and replaced with larger, new ones." Such a policy, he said, has been implemented in London "quite successfully," the article said.
The article said that Mr. Roth said that "nobody listened" to his suggestion last year.
Roth also "slammed New Jersey Governor Chris Christie for cancelling the planned Hudson River Rail Tunnel between New York and New Jersey. (Vornado owns Penn Station.) 'The principal purpose of governing is to provide infrastructure, and I hate to say it, but in this scenario, the Governor is flunking,' Roth said. 'We need to augment the amount of traffic that can come in by rail from New Jersey... somehow or other I hope it happens,'" the article said.
One of Vornado's current projects involves demolished the Hotel Pennsylvania on Seventh Avenue between 32nd and 33rd Streets to built a very tall office building to be known as 15 Penn Plaza, what Mr. Roth called "the most famous unbuilt building in
America, the article said, adding that Vornado is now" trolling for a tenant" for the project.
Mr. Roth, the article added, also said that Vornado's "planned 1.5-million-square-foot tower atop the Port Authority Bus Terminal may now be able to proceed on spec, thanks to a new capital partner."
Architecture Critic
Carter Horsley
Since 1997, Carter B. Horsley has been the editorial director of CityRealty. He began his journalistic career at The New York Times in 1961 where he spent 26 years as a reporter specializing in real estate & architectural news. In 1987, he became the architecture critic and real estate editor of The New York Post.
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