A Pennsylvania Station in Manhattan that’s filled with natural light streaming through soaring ceilings onto a spacious concourse with walls made of stone and trimmed in bronze?
More than a week after Amtrak announced it had chosen a developer to revive dreary Penn Station, details of the design are beginning to emerge. So is the cost: about $7 billion, according to people familiar with the plan who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the matter.
What’s less clear is where that money will come from, and how long the project will take.
Although Amtrak wrested control of the project from New York officials last year, the federal government still intends to seek help from New York and New Jersey to pay for the overhaul, these people said. Private companies also are expected to provide significant sums, they said, though what those companies will get in return has not been disclosed.
Sean P. Duffy, the U.S. transportation secretary, has said that construction to transform the notoriously dingy station into a “world-class travel hub” will begin in just over 18 months. But Amtrak officials have revealed few details of the plan to accomplish such a drastic turnaround so soon.
Andy Byford, the Amtrak executive in charge of the project, told elected officials from Manhattan this week that it was too soon for him to divulge details of the financing plan embedded in the proposal that he recommended to Amtrak’s board of directors, Brad Hoylman-Sigal, the Manhattan borough president, said.
Mr. Hoylman-Sigal was one of several elected officials who criticized Amtrak for not being more transparent about the process for rebuilding the station, which stretches two full blocks beneath Midtown. “It’s a little confusing to say the least,” he said.
The officials who were critical, including Representative Jerrold Nadler and Assemblyman Tony Simone, Democrats from Manhattan, gathered a few weeks ago to demand that Mr. Byford provide more information about the competing proposals for the Penn Station overhaul and whether the bidders had connections to the Trump administration.
Mr. Nadler contended that Amtrak had conducted a “back-door process” with “zero accountability” and “a complete lack of transparency.”
A section of Amtrak’s request for final bids for the project encouraged developers to suggest creative ways of making use of real estate surrounding the station to reduce the need for public funding. Rachael Fauss, a senior policy adviser for Reinvent Albany, a government watchdog group, said she suspected that Amtrak intended to fund the station renovation with some payments from developers that otherwise would have gone to the city as property taxes. “It’s pretty clear that this is where this is heading,” she said.
Vornado, a developer that owns several sites near the station, is involved in Penn Transformation Partners, the group Amtrak chose as master developer. Vornado’s partners in the project include two international construction firms, Halmar and Skanska. Vishaan Chakrabarti, creative director of the architecture firm PAU, is the principal architect for the project.
On Thursday, Mr. Chakrabarti said in an online posting that the proposed renovation would yield “a safe, functional and dignified station imbued with natural light, soaring ceilings, spacious platforms, and a bronze and stone material palette reminiscent of the original Penn, Moynihan and Grand Central Stations.”
Mr. Chakrabarti and his partners declined to comment for this article.
Mr. Trump has discussed having the station renamed for him, saying that others had floated the idea. But the people familiar with the proposal that was selected said that it did not go to great lengths to curry favor with Mr. Trump.
They said the plan did not indicate that the remodeled complex would be called Trump Station, nor did it envision an exterior excessively classical in style nor an interior gilded to resemble Mr. Trump’s Oval Office. But a rendering of the proposed renovation, obtained by the news site Gothamist, does include a wall engraved with Mr. Trump’s name and a large presidential seal.
The proposed design is more in keeping with the Beaux-Arts style of the Farley Building across Eighth Avenue that houses the Moynihan Train Hall, they said. The facades would be made of stone and accented with bronze, not gold.
The proposal does not imagine that Madison Square Garden will move from its longtime home atop the subterranean station. But it does involve purchasing a theater attached to the western side of the arena and used for concerts, sports events and shows, and razing it. That would create the space for a soaring glass-walled entrance on Eighth Avenue and a two-level concourse that would receive direct sunlight, Amtrak and Mr. Duffy said in a joint statement last week.
James Dolan, the executive chairman of Madison Square Garden Entertainment, joined Vornado’s chief executive, Steven Roth, at a recent meeting with Mr. Trump at the White House. Mr. Trump later told a columnist for The New York Post that he liked the Garden as it is.
Penn Transformation Partners has not disclosed the terms of any deal it has reached with Mr. Dolan.
The firm was one of three finalists in a competitive process begun by Mr. Byford last fall. Mr. Byford, who previously managed New York’s subway system, was appointed after the Trump administration took control of the station redevelopment from the Metropolitan Transportation Authority in April 2025.
The federal takeover followed efforts by Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, to persuade Mr. Trump to have the federal government cover most of the project’s cost. The president responded by asserting federal authority over the station, which Amtrak owns but is also used by the Long Island Rail Road and NJ Transit.
Ms. Hochul, in turn, withdrew $1.3 billion that New York had committed to the project. She called the turnabout a “major victory for New Yorkers” and has repeatedly said that the state would not contribute to the new plan.
Major transportation infrastructure projects are usually built with a combination of federal, state and local funding. So far, the only public money committed to the project is about $240 million from the federal Transportation Department and a $10 million pledge from New Jersey.
Mr. Byford has not provided a timeline for the project beyond saying that construction must begin before the end of 2027. When Halmar and its partners first presented their design for an overhaul of Penn Station a few years ago, they estimated that it would take about six years and $6 billion to complete.
Patrick McGeehan is a Times reporter who covers the economy of New York City and its airports and other transportation hubs.
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