N.Y. project to transform dreary part of Manhattan

NEW YORK — It’s a remote and dreary part of Manhattan — a desolate stretch of parking lots, warehouses, gas stations and scattered businesses just off the Hudson River.

But in a decade, developers hope to transform a swath of government-owned rail yards on the West Side waterfront into a new neighborhood of office towers as tall as 70 stories, apartments on the river, hotels and green parks.

The biggest names in New York real estate — paired with corporate names like Conde Nast and Morgan Stanley — are turning in bids due Thursday for rights to the 26 acres of Hudson rail yards, one of the last, best building opportunities that urban scholars say is crucial to the city’s future.

“To me, it’s a pressure site, because it’s the last large site,” said Robert Caro, who chronicled one of New York’s most important development periods in “The Power Broker.” “It’s a testing ground in my mind for what is going to be considered important as New York leaps forward bigger and bigger.”

Business leaders see the Hudson Yards project as a chance to extend midtown Manhattan — the nation’s most expensive commercial market — to the west, joining a planned development of offices near Penn Station and Madison Square Garden and an expanded Javits Convention Center near the river.

The multibillion-dollar price of building up to 24 million square feet of office space — plus over 13,000 apartments, a school, arts center and parkland — will likely force companies to pay the highest rents, said Steven Spinola, president of the Real Estate Board of New York.

The locale might attract a slightly different type of business, he said.

“Because of the open space, because of the water, you may get some of the more creative-type businesses who might want to be in a setting that is not as midtown-structured,” Spinola said. “The problem is, can they afford to pay those rents?”

The winning developer will likely have to spend about $1.5 billion to build platforms over the existing rail yards, billions in construction costs and well over $500 million for the development rights.

The city led a failed bid two years ago to develop a football stadium for the New York Jets at the site, hoping the project would serve as a linchpin to host the 2012 Olympics.