West Side Rail Yards Up For Bid

Today, Gov. Eliot Spitzer will announce that development rights to the 26-acres of waterfront land that make up the [West Side Rail Yards are up for bid]. If the state and MTA have their way, the area reaching from 30th to 33rd Street will be turned into 70-story commercial skyscrapers housing nearly 5,000 apartments and a cultural center, leaving only 12 acres of open space.

Whomever wins the rights must spend an estimated $1 billion to put platforms over the Long Island Rail Road tracks on the east and west sides of 11th Avenue before building—without disturbing trains moving in and out. Another caveat, any developer who builds rental apartments will be required to permanently put aside 20 percent of the units for [low- and moderate-income residents].

Nevertheless, big developers like Tishman Speyer, Related, Brookfield, Durst and Vornado are expected to bid. “The transportation authority, which owns the land, hoped to reap as much as $1 billion from the sale, but real estate executives said the bids might fall far short of that,” according to The New York Times.

Last year, a state board rejected the [Bloomberg administration’s plan] to put a new football stadium for the Jets on the land as part of a failed bid to [host the 2012 Olympics](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_City_2012_Olympic_bid).