Quinn Announces Support for a Fixed-Term 10 Year Special Permit

Please find attached and pasted below a letter from City Council Speaker Christine C. Quinn to The Madison Square Garden Company President and CEO Hank Ratner, outlining her support for granting a fixed-term 10 year special permit for Madison Square Garden to operate in its current location above Penn Station.

Speaker Quinn said the ten-year period will give stakeholders time to create and implement a plan for the future of Penn Station, Madison Square Garden and the entire area. To accomplish this, today she has called for the creation of a Commission for a 21st Century Penn Station whose dual mandate should be 1) to find a new Manhattan home for a state-of-the-art Madison Square Garden and 2) to create a Penn Station which more appropriately suits the needs of the hundreds of thousands of travelers who pass through it every day and can accommodate its expected growth in the future.

________

June 19, 2013

Hank Ratner
President and Chief Executive Officer
The Madison Square Garden Company
Madison Square Garden
Two Pennsylvania Plaza
New York, NY 10121-0091

Dear Mr. Ratner:

For over 100 years, Madison Square Garden has been an iconic New York destination. From its first location, in Madison Square Park, to its current home in my Council District, at 33rd Street and Eighth Avenue, it has been an important contributor to the vitality and economic growth of New York City, and most importantly, has provided thrilling moments too numerous to count for millions of New Yorkers as well as visitors from across the country and around the world.

Beneath the Garden, however, the experience has been quite different. For the last 50 years, since the old Penn Station was torn down and the Garden relocated above it, tens of millions of commuters, business travelers and tourists have had the lackluster experience of entering and departing Midtown from a dismal Penn Station that is dangerous, overcrowded, lacks adequate ingress and egress, and is not fully ADA accessible. As the number of travelers passing through the station has swelled to over 600,000 a day – far beyond the projections planners made when the current Garden was first proposed – these problems have only worsened.

The unresolved connection between these major facilities is a critical planning problem for the City, and, in order to support the growth of Midtown and the continued vitality of the City’s economy, this problem must be addressed. Not only is Penn Station the entrance to New York for so many rail passengers, but it will soon be the gateway to one of the City’s most important economic development initiatives, Hudson Yards, which will bring even more traffic to the station and the area.

There has been vigorous public debate, including today’s hearing before the City Council, about the permit that Madison Square Garden is seeking: to operate as an arena in its current location in perpetuity. Planners erred 50 years ago when they permitted Madison Square Garden to operate in this location without land use review for half of a century. Given the uniqueness of the site, with the arena sitting above the most heavily trafficked transit hub in the City, as well as the nation, a term for the permit is warranted. Moreover, the findings associated with the Special Permit are important and need to be reviewed more regularly than the 15-year period approved by the City Planning Commission last month. I agree with Manhattan Community Board 5 and Manhattan Borough President Scott M. Stringer that the term of this permit should be ten years. In addition, any reexamination of the findings for the Special Permit must, as required by law, go through the Uniform Land Use Review Procedures called for in the Charter, and not be at the sole discretion of the City Planning Commission.

The ten-year period will also give us time to create and implement a plan for the future of the site, and the entire area. Significantly improving Penn Station while Madison Square Garden sits atop it has proven to be an intractable problem, and it is my belief that finding a new location for the Garden is likely the only way to address the ongoing capacity and safety issues at Penn Station, as well as to bring this area to its best and highest use. To do this will require the participation of all the major stakeholders – the City, the State, the Federal Government, the MTA, Amtrak, the community boards, local businesses, the commuting public, and, obviously, Madison Square Garden itself. That is why I am today calling for the creation of a Commission for a 21st Century Penn Station whose dual mandate should be 1) to find a new Manhattan home for a state-of-the-art Madison Square Garden and 2) to create a Penn Station that more appropriately suits the needs of the hundreds of thousands of travelers who pass through it every day and can accommodate its expected growth in the future.

I am aware of the significant logistical and financial hurdles that relocating the Garden will face. However, the Garden has moved in the past, and can do so again. You were a willing participant in discussions several years ago when it was proposed that the Garden should consider moving into the new Moynihan Station, and I hope you will join me in supporting this new effort.

Sincerely,
Christine C. Quinn
Speaker

Cc: Irene Baker, Senior Vice President, Government Affairs, Madison Square Garden Company
Bcc: Elise Wagner, Counsel to Madison Square Garden