New York - Hudson River Tunnel Pushes Businesses Out of Its Way

New York - Christine A. Moore, a hat designer on 34th Street in Midtown Manhattan, is one of the unlucky 100. Like other businesses and landlords in the area, she has been warned that a giant tunnel-boring machine is coming to her neighborhood and that she will have to move as her building is marked for demolition.

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey this week began to send letters to more than 3,000 occupants of a wide swath of the West Side that surrounds the path of one of the biggest public-works projects in the nation: an $8.7 billion commuter train tunnel under the Hudson River. The letters lay out the plan and schedule for construction of the tunnel — twin tunnels, actually — which will end at a new terminal deep under 34th Street at the foot of the Macy’s flagship store.

The Port Authority, which is a partner with New Jersey Transit in the project, is telling most of the recipients of the letters that they do not stand in the way of the project and, so, will not be directly affected by the construction. But Ms. Moore, her landlord and more than 90 other businesses or building owners are receiving a different message: The Port Authority wants all or part of your building and may invoke eminent domain law to acquire it.

That notice upset Ms. Moore, who has run her hat-making business out of a 900-square-foot space at 110 West 34th Street for 12 years. She said that she had been promised help in finding another location for her showroom but that she first had to adjust to the idea of being uprooted.

“The reality is, it’s going to happen,” Ms. Moore said. “But you need some time to adjust.”

Ms. Moore described the building, which is 12 stories, as a remnant of another era. The building is about 80 years old and has been managed for the last quarter-century by the Jemal family, which has owned and developed commercial buildings across the city. Its ground floor houses a Payless Shoe Source, and the upstairs tenants include clothing companies, travel agencies and doctors’ offices.

Most striking was Ms. Moore’s positive sentiment toward her landlords. “They’ve been very gracious landlords to small start-ups,” said Ms. Moore, who, even more surprisingly, characterized her rent as “very low.”

She said she doubted that O. R. Colan Associates, a company based in North Carolina that the Port Authority has hired to help with relocations, would be able to find her a similar space nearby.

“Where would you put me? Because I can’t go to Coney Island,” said Ms. Moore, whose hats are popular among women who attend horse races like the Belmont Stakes. “I can’t operate a fashion business from Coney Island.”

Originally, the plan for the tunnel project — known as Access to the Region’s Core — called for taking part of 110 West 34th for an entrance to the long escalators that would carry commuters down to the new terminal, 150 feet below street level. But after more study, engineers decided that the building could not remain standing, said Paul Wyckoff, a spokesman for the project.

Mr. Wyckoff and Stephen Sigmund, a spokesman for the Port Authority, declined to characterize negotiations with the Jemals. Through another spokesman, the Jemals also declined to comment.

It will be a while before the Port Authority can take any of the property. First, it must hold a public hearing to explain the eminent domain process and give people a chance to comment about the project. The date for that hearing has not been set.

Along the way, officials of the authority have been negotiating with owners of seven properties that they want to acquire and seven others that they want to buy a portion of. If they strike deals, they could avoid potentially costly litigation.

“We’re going to make every effort to reach negotiated agreements with these property owners,” Mr. Sigmund said.

Ground was broken last summer at the west end of the tunnel in North Bergen, N.J. New Jersey Transit, whose commuter trains will run through the tunnels, has chosen a consortium to dig the Manhattan side of the tunnels, but work in the city is not expected to begin for several months. The Manhattan end of the project will begin with the construction of a shaft near the west end of 28th Street.

About a year later, according to one of the letters the Port Authority is sending out, “a tunnel boring machine begins steadily digging the tunnel and advancing to the north and east.”

NY Times