New Moynihan Station plans show no sign of garden site.

Renderings and the general project plan for the new Moynihan Station were revealed last week by the Moynihan Station Development Corporation in what MSDC's chairman Charles Gargano called an important initial step in the approval process for the $818 million project that will expand Pennsylvania Station.

The general project plan, which provides a description and the terms of the conversion plan for the Farley Post Office into Moynihan Station, will next undergo a 30-day public comment period beginning in late May before the plan is submitted to the board of directors for the Empire State Development Corporation and MSDC for final approvals. Gargano estimated that the project could be fully approved and ready to commence major construction before September.

The renderings were drafted by Skidmore Owings and Merrill architect, David Childs, and differ from previous versions most obviously in the design of the large arched glass skylights that will act as roofs over the building's two large internal atriums, the Train Hall and Intermodal Hall. Those skylights, meant to recreate the impressive light and air of the original Penn Station which was demolished in 1963, had been envisioned in previous renderings as a pair of undulating glass structures supported by latticed steel columns. Gone in the current design as well are two nearly street level sheets of glass along the northern perimeter of the building running along 33rd Street from 8th to 9th Avenue that would act as giant portals of light for the train platforms below and were depicted in a rendering done by architecture HOK in the summer of 2005.

How a new Madison Square Garden will fit into the design for the new station remains to be seen. It has been widely reported that MSG, which currently sits over Penn Station, has already struck a deal to relocate from its current home to Moynihan Station.

Speaking at a press conference announcing the new renderings and the general project plan for Moynihan Station, ESDC and MSDC chairman Charles Gargano said that a formal plan for the inclusion of the MSG arena into the Moynihan Station plans had not been presented by the station's developers, The Related Companies and Vornado. There has been speculation that the MSG arena would sit on the western half of the building where there are no skylights. But its presence could potentially affect the design of the current skylights, particularly the glass structure over Intermodal Hall, which sits in close proximity to the western annex.

"We have heard speculation about a Madison Square Garden," Gargano said. "In the proposal that was submitted by the developers they did indicate the possibility of an arena, but we have not heard anything beyond that. Obviously, they would need approval from the Moynihan Station Development Corporation. At this point [this] is a transportation project that we are building and focused on and there is nothing more."