South Korean Firms Want to Invest Billions in Rebuild of Penn Station

As part of South Korea’s new trade deal with the Trump administration, Korean industrialists are offering to invest in the rebuilding of Penn Station and its West Side neighborhood.

“We understand that the US DOT [Department of Transportation] and President Trump desire to see this project move forward as expeditiously as possible as a priority national-level goal,” said a letter from Jin Roy Ryu, a Korean munitions manufacturer and chair of the Federation of Korean Industries.

The letter arrived just ahead of the summit meeting at the White House Monday, Aug. 25, between President Trump and the President of South Korea, Lee Jae-myung. A key agenda item for the summit, according to President Trump, is ironing out the details of a Korean commitment to contribute $350 billion in US-based investments as part of their July tariff deal.

The rebuilding of Penn Station, which the Trump administration took over in April, was described by one official as “a chip” in those discussions.

The letter from the Koreans was sent to Tom Klingenstein, the conservative Trump supporter and benefactor of the Grand Penn Community Alliance, one of several organizations that have put forward plans for rebuilding the station. Klingenstein has campaigned for the restoration of a classically designed station, in the spirit of the late, lamented McKim, Mead, and White original that was torn down in the 1960s.

Ryu, in his letter to Klingenstein, described a conference call he held with Transportation Department officials “during which the national priority of this project was confirmed, as well as the direct interest of President Donald Trump was emphasized.” Ryu’s letter was first reported by the conservative news site Just the News, founded by former Fox contributor John Solomon.

Separately, the Secretary of Transportation, Sean Duffy, plans to announce on Wednesday the schedule for deciding who will oversee the rebuilding of the station and what its new design will be. He would be joined at the announcement, officials said, by Andy Byford, the former New York City Transit chief, who was put in charge of the Penn Station project after President Trump took it over from Governor Hochul and the MTA.

Duffy has already announced that he wants the Penn Station project conducted as a public-private partnership, or P3, in which a private developer manages the work and at least part of the investment. The rebuilding of LaGuardia Airport and a number of other major infrastructure projects were conducted as P3s.

“Should President Trump support the participation of the Republic of Korea in the Grand Penn Project, we would welcome the opportunity to discuss possible ways to support the engagement,” Ryu wrote to Klingenstein.

This, Ryu explained, could be “both as a potential financial partner in the infrastructure redevelopment and as a possible catalyst for commercial real estate development.”

The Grand Penn Community Alliance estimates the cost of its plan at $7.5 billion, but the Koreans were said to be willing to invest up to $15 billion. The additional investment would be in office development in the adjacent neighborhood, which includes what is popularly known as Koreatown, or K-Town.

Ryu offered to “help coordinate Korean commercial interests” as the governments and the Grand Penn Community Alliance explored “potential Republic of Korea business partners.”

An investment on the scale the Koreans are floating would be a major boost for the Grand Penn Alliance, which will have to compete with others for the project. One of the major competitors is the Italian developer ASTM, whose American subsidiary, Halmar International, has developed what is generally believed to be the most detailed plan for rebuilding the station.

Halmar has said it would finance the reconstruction and then recoup its investment by charging to manage the station for the next few decades.

A principal difference between the Grand Penn and Halmar plans is the fate of Madison Square Garden.

Halmar proposes to leave the Garden in place but tear down its theater on Eighth Avenue to make way for a grand train hall. The Grand Penn plan, in contrast, would move the Garden and build a park, bigger than Bryant Park, above the renovated station.

Richard Cameron, an architect who has proposed yet a third plan with ReThink NYC, said in a newsletter that he was “in full swing as we anticipate a forthcoming design competition for Penn Station.”

Governor Hochul had promised such a competition, but it was unclear how that would be handled after the Trump administration took over the project. A crucial question is how the selection of the master developer, the public-private partner, intersects with the design competition, since several of the competitors for master developer, like Halmar and Grand Penn Community Alliance, also have their own preferred design.

In addition, beyond how the station looks and feels, whoever is chosen as the master developer will have to wrestle with a major debate over how the station actually operates at the track level.

The railroads that use Penn Station—Amtrak, which owns the station, and two commuter lines, Long Island Rail Road and New Jersey Transit—say they want to double service into the station by the 2030s after the new Gateway tunnels are completed under the Hudson River.

But there are deep divisions over whether that expansion can be achieved within the station’s current footprint, or whether a physical expansion will be needed, endangering adjacent blocks.

The Federal Railroad Administration, part of the DOT, says it is conducting an independent review of these capacity questions, particularly whether the railroads can get more trains in and out of the station by running them through to destinations on either side, rather than ending all the runs at Penn Station.

Proponents say this so-called “through running” would alleviate the need to expand the station beyond its current boundaries, saving adjacent blocks.

How the results of that review will then be integrated into the design and reconstruction of the station is a major question railroad officials have yet to address.