ALBANY – The cost of creating a Moynihan Rail Station to replace dingy Penn Station will be more than $3 billion – and could go even higher as construction costs continue to rise, a top Spitzer administration official said yesterday.
Pat Foye, chairman of the Empire State Development Corp., told a legislative budget committee that it will cost between $2.2 billion and $2.3 billion to completely overhaul the existing Penn Station on the east side of Eighth Avenue into a more airy and open facility.
It will cost another $900 million to expand the station into the old Farley Post Office on the west side of Eighth Avenue, Foye later told The Post.
The total $3.2 billion cost does not include construction of a new Madison Square Garden and private retail areas that are part of the plan but will be paid for with private development dollars, Foye said.
To date, the state believes it has commitments for about half of the $2.3 billion needed for the overhaul of Penn Station, including $550 million from a joint venture of private developers, $300 million from the state and an expected $300 million from the city, Foye told lawmakers.
The state hopes to raise the rest by asking for at least $100 million more from the private developers, $800 million from the federal government, and an unspecified amount from New Jersey, whose commuters will benefit from the new station, he later said.
“We’re very focused on answers to those questions in the next several months,” Foye said.
He later said that in many cases, the state simply wants the commitments now and the money later.
The federal money, for instance, won’t be needed until 2012, he told The Post.
And while Foye said increases in construction costs over the next few years are built into the cost estimates, he acknowledged the final price tag could grow.
But he denied the state is risking a repeat of the failed Jacob Javits Center expansion, for which delays and monthly 2 to 3 percent increases in construction costs made the long-awaited project cost prohibitive.
“We believe this will create the same value for the West Side of Manhattan that Grand Central Station created for the East Side,” Foye said.
State officials expect to roll out the construction schedule this spring.
The $3.2 billion price tag is more than three times higher than a more modest Moynihan station plan aggressively pushed by Gov. George Pataki in 2006.
Foye said the state, city and federal funding arrangement for that deal is still in place.