City Is Seeking To Build a Giant Parking Lot Near the Hudson Yards

Almost two years after the city's failed attempt to build a football stadium on Manhattan's far West Side, the construction of the stadium's accompanying parking lot is moving ahead.

The city is planning to build a 950-space underground parking garage on the far West Side that is expected to cost about $125 million, a consultant for Walker Parking Consultants, Andrew Hill, said yesterday. The city is expected to issue a request for proposals soon to attract a private developer to pay for the construction, design, and management of the lot, he said.

The mammoth underground garage, which would stretch to 36th from 34th Streets between Eighth and Eleventh Avenues, was included in the original rezoning of the Hudson Yards area two years ago, and was originally planned to accommodate Jets fans who drove into the city for games at the stadium.

Community residents say they view the garage as an extravagant relic of the city's failed stadium bid, and are opposing the creation of the large garage that they say could bring more traffic to their neighborhood. Proponents of the parking garage argue that even without a football stadium, the redeveloped area would need a large garage to support an expected influx of residents and office workers to the area.

"Now that the stadium's gone, the parking lot doesn't make a whole lot of sense," the co-chair of Community Board 4's transportation committee, Christine Berthet, said. "The community is opposed to this. We support the extension of the no. 7 train line and the planning for how to bring people to the Javits Center shouldn't be for people to come by car."

The rezoned Hudson Yards, which stretches to 42nd Street from 28th Street between Eighth and Eleventh Avenues, is expected to included 24 million square feet of new office development, 13,500 new units of housing, 1 million square feet of retail space, and 2 million square feet of hotel space.

Several of the city's biggest developers, including Extell Development Company, Vornado Realty Trust in partnership with Douglas Durst, as well as Brookfield Properties and Tishman Speyer Properties, are expected to bid on a project that could cost as much as $1 billion to build platforms over the rail yards that would support residential and commercial skyscrapers. The parking lot would be just to the north of the rail yards.

The Hell's Kitchen Neighborhood Association is also raising a lawsuit against the city arguing that the parking garage violates the federal Clean Air Act, which set a cap of 7,000 on the number of parking spaces that could be created below 60th Street in Manhattan. The new zoning for the Hudson Yards project exceeds the federal cap, a plaintiff in the suit, Daniel Gutman, said.

A spokeswoman for the Hudson Yards Development Corporation was unavailable for comment yesterday.