Community groups and one local elected official are slamming a developer’s plan to put tennis courts and a giant billboard on the site of a demolished hotel across from Penn Station amid New York City’s deep housing shortage.
The developer Vornado owns the property and tore down the old Hotel Pennsylvania last year with plans to one day erect a 56-story office skyscraper called PENN15 as part of a state-backed redevelopment plan for the area around the transit hub. But Vornado put the construction plan on hold indefinitely due to a lingering dip in the commercial real estate market. It’s now considering putting tennis courts, an events venue and a 150-foot-tall billboard on the site until office towers become more profitable, Crain’s first reported.
Local residents and civic groups were already urging Vornado to build housing instead of a commercial skyscraper on the lot, which is bordered by Sixth and Seventh avenues and West 32nd and West 33rd streets. Assemblymember Tony Simone says the tennis court proposal is only fueling their advocacy.
“We’re in a housing shortage, we need to increase supply,” Simone said. “We don’t need tennis courts or silly playgrounds for the well-to-do on that site.”
Simone said Vornado could be “a hero” for building housing on the two-acre site and helping to address the city’s ongoing shortage, but added that the firm would need state and city subsidies in order to do so.
“They have a grand opportunity to work with the governor and the local electeds,” he said. “We shouldn’t waste time by putting tennis courts and billboards.”
Vornado did not respond to requests for comment, but previously told Crain’s the tennis court renderings were “for conceptual purposes” and were just one of a number of potential placeholder projects.
Vornado had planned to build up to 10 office skyscrapers spanning 18 million square feet around a redesigned Penn Station through a state-backed “General Project Plan” that could allow the…
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