Penn Station: In Run-Up to Bids, Trump Makes Preference Know
The deadline to submit bid by the three companies seeking to be the master developer for the multi-billion dollar job is May 4. Trump says he thinks it will be impractical to force MSG to move. Amtrak is revealing very little before the deadline.
| 24 Apr 2026 | 12:17
With bids from three designers due on May 4 in the Penn Station redevelopment, President Donald Trump says that he thinks moving Madison Square Garden would be impractical. In the homestretch, Amtrak, which will oversee the project, is tight lipped (
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Halmar early in the process said it proposed buying what was once called the Hulu Theater on the Eighth Ave. side of Penn Station/MSG and building a spacious new entrance on that side of the rail hub, which would seem to coincide with Trump’s latest statement. (
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The Grand Penn Alliance, headed by a Trump ally, proposes moving Madison Square Garden across the street to a lot where the Peninsula Hotel once stood and creating a classical architecture look to the nation’s busiest rail hub. (
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Amtrak has hushed everyone even more forcefully than on the quiet car.
The competition to select a private developer to transform Penn Station is being conducted behind closed doors. The three finalists were barred from commenting and Amtrak itself rejected a demand from elected officials to see key documents.
“Alas, can’t speak about procurement,” a usually voluble bidder told a reporter as the May 4 deadline for submissions approached.
But one federal official ignored the gag order.
The developer-in-chief, Donald J. Trump.
In a phone call to the New York Post, Trump weighed-in on one of the basic questions. He told the newspaper that moving Madison Square Garden was not practical and that he favored a plan that leaves it in place and rebuilds around it.
“It just makes sense,” he was quoted as saying.
With that pithy phrase, Trump sided with two allies, James Dolan, who owns the Garden and likes it just where it is, and Steven Roth, whose Vornado Realty is part of one of the consortiums bidding to rebuild Penn Station.
That consortium, led by Halmar, the American subsidiary of the Italian developer, ASTM, wants to buy the theater on the Eighth Avenue side of MSG from Dolan and tear it down to create a spacious new train hall.
Amtrak, which owns Penn Station, is itself owned by the federal government. So, it has always been clear that the Trump administration would have a say in the rebuilding. The Secretary of Transportation, Sean Duffy, just announced that he was allocating $4.7 billion to Amtrak for improving the Northeast corridor, including Penn Station. How much of that goes to Penn Station is yet to be determined.
But in speaking when he did, Trump seemed to step right in front of the procurement process that Amtrak had gone to such lengths to protect.
Indeed, Trump appeared to undercut the proposal of another of his allies, The Grand Penn Alliance, funded and inspired by Tom Klingenstein, a campaign contributor and major benefactor of the movement to revive classical architecture in public building.
Indeed, the Post Columnist, Miranda Devine, was in the middle of writing a piece singing the praises of the Grand Penn plan, which would move the Garden across the street to a site owned by Vornado so a park and grand train hall could be built.
That’s when Trump called to tell her it was not practical to move the Garden.
At first, the comments didn’t draw much attention. Maybe that is because they were inside Devine’s column essentially arguing the opposite.
“We are not going to comment,” said Andy Byford, who is overseeing the reconstruction project for Amtrak.
But then Andrew Cuomo, the former governor, jumped in to say how pleased he was that Trump was picking up his idea to leave the Garden on top of the station but tear down the theater.
“The dream scenario has always been to move the Garden to another location,” Cuomo wrote in the Wall Street Journal, which along with the Post is owned by Rupert Murdoch. “Is that possible? Yes. Is it feasible? Definitely not. Owner James Dolan has no intention of relocating, and there is neither a viable site nearby nor the billions to make it happen.”
Exactly where this all leave the competition will presumably become clear in the next few weeks. There is a third bidder, who reportedly also would leave the Garden in place. But because of the gag order little is known about their plan.
The three contenders must submit their final proposals on May 4. Byford and a committee will then review those submissions and recommend a winner to the Amtrak Board in June. Duffy’s office has a seat on the Amtrak Board.
The future of the Garden is only one of many issues. There is the total price tag, variously estimated in the $7 to $8 billion range, as well as who will pay what share. The project is being structured as what is called a public-private partnership, so one major issue is how the private partner will recoup its costs.
As reported by Straus News on April 6, Byford has pledged a year of public engagement beginning this summer before final decisions are made about the design or funding of the project.