NYC promises $2B in tax revenue for overhaul of Port Authority Bus Terminal
An artist's rendering of the replaced and expanded Port Authority Bus Terminal in Manhattan.
New York City is promising as much as $2 billion in revenue from property taxes to pay a share of the antiquated Port Authority Bus Terminal's $10 billion overhaul.
The money is from 40 years of tax revenue to be generated from three potential commercial developments, “two of which will be positioned atop the new bus terminal and the third to be built at a nearby site owned by the Port Authority and private owners, subject to market demand,” Gov. Kathy Hochul's and Mayor Eric Adams' offices said Tuesday in a news release.
“Anyone entering New York City should be greeted by a world-class travel hub, and now we are one step closer to a revitalized Port Authority Bus Terminal,” Hochul said in the release.
Hochul's and Adams' offices sent out the news release almost simultaneously.
“For decades, New Yorkers have watched the Port Authority Bus Terminal deteriorate from the world-class facility it was in the 1950s to the stain it is on Midtown today. The days of watching are over, and the days of acting are here,” Adams said in the release.
The new bus terminal is set to replace the “existing 73-year-old, functionally-obsolete and rundown terminal with a long overdue world-class facility,” the release said.
The new building will have a 2.1 million-square-foot main terminal, a building for storage and staging, and new ramps leading into and out of the Lincoln Tunnel.
The project is to be done in phases: a temporary terminal and new ramps completed in 2028 and the new main terminal in 2032.
The plan includes a proposal to permanently close a part of 41st Street between Eighth and Ninth avenues, along with having a central main entrance, additional retail on the street level along with an indoor atrium and new public open space.
The plan also boosts capacity to allow buses that currently do pickup and drop off on city streets to move operations inside the building.
The “iconic atrium entrance” would be on West 41st Street and Eighth Avenue. It's all part of a push for “significantly improved and attractive facades, enhancing the visual quality of the new bus terminal to become an asset rather than an eyesore to the surrounding neighborhoods,” the release said.
The roots of the terminal date to 1939, when eight bus terminals were scattered across midtown, and then-Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia appointed a committee to resolve the problem.
Matthew Chayes, a Newsday reporter since 2007, covers New York City.
