The Penn District, site of one of New York City’s most dramatic transformations, has become “a neighborhood for everybody” — although that’s not exactly common knowledge yet.
“This is a long-term revitalization of an entire neighborhood in phases,” said Glen Weiss, executive vice president and co-head of real estate at Vornado Realty Trust, which spearheaded the transformation. “It’s not like Hudson Yards, which at one time came out of the ground, or Rockefeller Center that just came out of the ground,” both with a lot of fanfare. “This is an amalgamation of different properties built in the 1900s into the 2000s.
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“It’s a chapter-by-chapter story,” Weiss said during an interview. “Is the word 100 percent out? No. But I will tell you, as we write each positive chapter, whether it’s a restaurant opening or a new office lease signed, or the opening of Penn 1 or Penn 2, as each chapter finishes and the next one unfolds, the story gets out, more and more. Additionally, when there are events at Madison Square Garden, eyeballs are on this place.”
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Weiss said special events within the Penn District are being planned for 2025, to further get the word out. “Stay tuned. We’re going to activate it properly, the way we think office workers and the residential community want, and not in a forced matter.”
More than $5 billion in public and private investment over the past decade — $2.4 billion by Vornado alone — has poured into redeveloping the Penn District, which is bordered by West 34th and West 31st Streets and Sixth and Ninth Avenues. It’s a huge transportation hub for the Long Island Rail Road, Amtrak, PATH, New Jersey Transit and 15 subway lines. Metro North is expected to link up in 2027. The intersection of Seventh Avenue and 34th Street has the highest pedestrian footfall in the country, with an average of 650,000 people passing through Penn Station daily. And the Penn District is arguably the epicenter of Manhattan’s West Side.
So far, Vornado has redeveloped 5.2 million square feet of the 10 million square feet it controls in the district. Most of the attention has focused on Penn 1, at the intersection of 34th Street and Seventh Avenue, and Penn 2, at Seventh and 33rd Street. They’re two redesigned state-of-the art, amenity-rich office towers with soaring lobbies. Vornado also developed the Moynihan Train Hall and its food hall, which contains Jacob’s Pickles, Burger Joint, Naya, Maman, The Irish Exit, Magnolia Bakery, E.A.K. Ramen and other food and beverage options. Vornado partnered with New York State, Amtrak, the MTA and The Related Cos. on the Moynihan project and operates the food hall.
Overall, the real estate investment trust has introduced 1.1 million square feet of new retail space for restaurants and stores into the district, roughly 800,000 square feet of it leased to more than 70 food and beverage businesses.
But substantially more retail space could surface. In 2023, Vornado demolished the old Pennsylvania Hotel on Seventh Avenue between 32nd and 33rd Streets, leaving a vacant 80,000-square-foot parcel. “We’re strategizing on that site,” Weiss said. “It could be office. It could be residential. It could be retail. It could be a hotel. It could be a mix of all that. We could build 2.5 million square feet there,” as allowed by the zoning.
Ed Hogan, executive vice president of Vornado Retail, said the stretch from 31st to 34rd Streets on the east side of Seventh Avenue could be developed into 300,000 square feet of retail space accommodating up to ten store “anchors” ranging from 15,000 to 90,000 square feet.
In addition, a 250-foot-long corridor along 32rd Street linking Moynihan Station and Ninth Avenues has 60,000 square feet of retail space, with room for 28 shops from 1,000 to 3,000 square feet in size. To lease that space — designated Runway 32 — Hogan is targeting contemporary fashion brands catering to 25- to 45-year-old women, reflecting a growing part of the area’s workforce. “No landlord has ever said let’s take a city block and curate it for that demographic,” Hogan said. Kiehl’s skin care, Danish fashion brand Rains, Moleskine for writing instruments and accessories, and Malin + Goetz skin care are already operating stores in Runway 32.
Vornado also owns 150 West 34th Street, where Primark, the Dublin-based value-oriented fashion retailer, will open its first Manhattan store, taking over the 75,000-square-foot space currently occupied by Old Navy. Primark is seen generating $100 million in annual sales on the site, sources said. “We will be right next to the redeveloped Penn District,” Kevin Tulip, president of Primark in the U.S., said when the lease was announced last October. “It’s now a very exciting place.”
Companies recently establishing offices in Vornado’s Penn District properties include Meta, Interpublic Group of Companies, Apple Music, Samsung, Hartford Life Insurance, Morgan Stanley and Cisco. Major League Soccer is moving into the neighborhood next year. In total, “Companies occupying about 20 million square feet have moved here, from everywhere, over the past seven, eight years,” Weiss said.
“The rents are increasing as we speak,” he said. “They used to be $60 a foot. They’re now over $100. We’re competing with everything in the market — Hudson Yards, Manhattan West, Park Avenue, Sixth Avenue, Rockefeller Center, the Meatpacking District, Chelsea — everything.”
While Manhattan does have a glut of available office space due to overdevelopment and businesses vacating the city because of the pandemic, Weiss maintained: “There’s not enough great office space available [right] at transportation, like you’re seeing with Penn 1 and Penn 2. I believe you could build more office space, but it has to be done absolutely correct to succeed. What do people want from an office? Number one, a one-seat commute,” so commuters can get to their offices without having to scurry from, for example, the Long Island Rail Road or Metro North to a subway or bus.
“Number two, it should be highly amenitized,” Weiss added. “But it’s not really just the amenities that count as much as the feel of the workplace.”
On a recent tour of the district, Weiss did highlight many amenities offered at Penn 1 and Penn 2 — the concierge services, the expansive common work, lounge and conference spaces; the coffee stops; charging stations; food and beverage options, and rooftop seating areas.
Specifically, Penn 1, on 34th Street and Seventh Avenue has bleacher-style seating with a large screen for sports events and movie nights, a fireplace lounge, a conference center, the Landing Restaurant and a three-level Life Time fitness club with the city’s largest indoor pickle ball center in a space formerly occupied by Kmart. Over the first three levels, Vornado has what it calls an “amenity ecosystem” for adaptable workspace, self care, grab-and-go food options and the Blue Ribbon Sushi & Steak restaurant.
Penn 2, rising above Penn Station, has a 280-seat theater ideal for town halls, a 40,000-square-foot event space and “The Perch” for outdoor events or just hanging out, with a panoramic view of the city. Penn 2 has further been transformed with The Bustle, a structure suspended 50 feet high serving as a giant awning with LED lighting and art displays and setting a grand entranceway to Madison Square Garden, Penn Station and Penn 2.
The Penn District has always been where thousands worked, shopped and rushed to get home unless they were going to a game or concert at the Garden. The area long felt chaotic, congested, dirty and unsafe. “It was where you wanted to come and go as quickly as possible,” Weiss said. The area was originally called Penn Plaza, with ironically, no plazas. But as this large central section of city began changing, it could no longer be associated with a singular plaza or place, so Penn District became the vernacular.
“It’s very, very different now,” Weiss said. “What people love about what we’ve we done in Penn is, it’s comfortable. It’s approachable, and you don’t want to leave. It’s about the overall feel of the environment. There’s this sense of place. It was not easily achievable, but we’ve achieved it.”
For its office workers, retailers, residents and commuters, “it’s a neighborhood for everybody,” Weiss said. “We delivered what I would call a community with soul. So when you walk now from Farley Station to Penn 1 to Penn 2 to Penn 11 [another Vornado building] you know you’re in the Penn District. It’s no longer this hodgepodge of property, so to speak. It’s all now intertwined. It’s really a campus.”
To enhance the area and make it welcoming, Vornado created 300,000 square feet of landscaped outdoor plazas and new sidewalks, including Plaza 33, a vehicle-free pedestrian promenade along 33rd Street stretching from Seventh to Ninth Avenues with new stores, outdoor seating, and restaurants such as Bar Primi, Roberta’s Pizza and Los Taco No.1, for a range from white tablecloth to more casual dining. Vornado put in 85,000 pavers and planted 200 trees to help create a sense of place and tie the area together. Vornado also formed its own public safety task force, with 83 uniform people working in conjunction with the New York Police Department.Sunday Hospitality, known for creating and operating restaurants, bar and other food-and-beverage-focused spaces, is soon moving into Penn 2.
“Thirty-third Street used to be one of the worst streets in Manhattan,” jammed with buses, cabs and delivery trucks, Weiss said.
The real estate firm renovated Penn Station with new entrances, widened corridors and a cast of better fast casual food options, such as Chick-fil-A, Shake Shack, Dos Toros, Wasabi Sushi, H&H Bagels and Insomnia Cookies, making Penn easier and brighter to navigate.
When Vornado was devising its master plan for the district, “We cemented the vision approximately five years ago. We thought not only about how we would transform the properties, but also the streetscapes and how to do that in an authentic New York fashion.”
With all that’s been accomplished in the district, “We’ve finished phase one, which is the 5 million-plus square feet,” Weiss said. Asked how many more phases of development there will be and over how many years, Weiss replied, “It’s not a finite answer. Next will be the Hotel Pennsylvania site….We have other multiple sites that are available to us in the neighborhood that we control,” including 100 West 33rd Street on Sixth Avenue, housing the headquarters for Interpublic, and Vornado’s most easterly site on the West Side.
“The whole game has changed,” Weiss said. Penn District, he said, “was a 9 to 5 place. You came off the train. You went to your office. You went back to your train and went home. You did not do anything here but work. You probably brought your lunch to work because there was really nowhere to even eat lunch. Now that’s completely changed, and now everyone is here morning, noon and night. Outside at night, when the weather is decent, people are sitting in the plaza that we created, and enjoying New York. It’s no longer rushed. It’s no longer chaotic.”
Asked what’s been the biggest challenge redeveloping Penn District, Weiss said: “The general psychology about the neighborhood has been the biggest challenge. What have people been worrying about? The safety factor, the cleanliness factor. Then there was the belief that what we envisioned could happen. It was about changing people’s psychology about the district. But now we have gotten through all that, but that was certainly the biggest hurdle. If two things did not happen, we would not have succeeded. First, the opening of the new Moynihan Train Hall, which we did with the State of New York. It’s a beautiful new edifice and transportation model, servicing Amtrak and the Long Island Rail Road, and providing all this new retail.
“Step two — the new Long Island Rail Road concourse, all built by Vornado, and it feels great.” The corridors are wider and the ceilings are higher, Weiss added. “It’s been this really powerful intersection of the new transportation stations, the new office projects, new streets, the new retail, the cleaning up of the area, the new safety procedures and protocols and staffing. We did work with Madison Square Garden, Macy’s and other landlords in the area, and it all has now coalesced into a really strong marketplace.”