NEW YORK CITY — Vornado Realty Trust (NYSE: VNO) is nearing completion of a $750 million repositioning of PENN 2, a 1.8 million-square-foot office building that sits atop the Penn Station transit hub in Midtown Manhattan.
PENN 2 will sport architectural features such as a modern glass curtain wall, a triple-height lobby that opens onto a new plaza on 33rd Street and a six-story podium comprised of 105,000 square feet of column-free, double-height space.
Above the 33rd Street plaza is a 280-person town hall space with a flexible seating system that can support large-scale keynote talks, private media screenings, banquets, conferences, workshops and open-floor exhibitions.
PENN 2 also offers 72,000 square feet of outdoor green space, including an outdoor terrace atop the podium and a landscaped 17,000 square-foot rooftop park that is available to all tenants.
The building sits across the street from Madison Square Garden, which houses its global headquarters within the office space. The larger PENN District campus is home to major tenants such as Meta, Morgan Stanley, Amazon, The Hartford, Cisco Systems and Samsung.
“The reimagined PENN 2 appeals directly to innovation-oriented companies seeking an ultra-premium, hospitality-infused office environment that offers a one-seat ride for workers throughout the metropolitan region,” says Glen Weiss, executive vice president of office leasing and co-head of real estate at Vornado.
Vornado has hired Cushman & Wakefield to lead leasing efforts at the repositioned building. As part of the upgrade of the larger campus, the New York City-based REIT has redesigned various entrances to Penn Station and the surrounding subway system and brought in a host of new operators for the street-level and below-grade retail components. Public spaces and elements, including plazas, sidewalks and landscaping, have also been enhanced.
The stock price of Vornado Realty Trust opened at $27.74 per share on Monday, Jan. 8, up from $21.78 per share a year ago. The company has ownership and management interests in approximately 20 million square feet of office properties in Manhattan.
— Taylor Williams