Are the New York Knicks and Madison Square Garden going to relocate? New York City Board plans to vote on the issue.
A plan to renovate and relocate Madison Square Garden has been advanced by New York City’s Community Board Five Land Use, Housing & Zoning Committee.
This means a vote will be held by the Community Board Five on Thursday in hopes that, if it passes, the Governor of New York would consider the proposal. The plan was first proposed in 2016 by the founder of Practice for Architecture and Urbanism, Vishaan Chakrabarti. The proposed arena would move to an eight-acre plot of land and would sit in between two skyscrapers.
From Michael Young/NewYorkYimby:
“Madison Square Garden would move to an eight-acre site consisting of two full-block parcels bound by Sixth Avenue to the east, West 32nd Street to the south, Seventh Avenue to the west, and West 34th Street to the north. Straddling the new arena is a pair of supertall skyscrapers and two shorter towers, anchoring all four corners of a raised podium above street level.”
The plan also includes the current MSG location being gutted, renovated and redeveloped into part of Penn Station.
The addition of a Penn Station renovation in the proposed plans to relocate MSG make this an exciting proposition for New Yorkers. It’s unclear how James Dolan and Madison Square Garden feel about this proposed plan. With an estimated $5 billion dollar price tag, though, this project will have to gain the approval of MSG and other city officials before gaining serious steam.
Today’s Madison Square Garden is the fourth in New York City’s history dating back to 1879. The first location was on Madison Avenue and was used for track and cycling from 1879-1890.
The second arena was made in 1890 in the same location as the first but was demolished in 1925.
The third MSG began hosting New York Rangers games in 1926 and Knicks games in 1946 and remained the home of the Knicks for more than 20 years. Check out Knicks Super Fan, Chris Shammas’ most treasured keepsake from this version of MSG.
MSG today is the fourth arena and opened on February 14, 1968. It underwent a massive $200 million dollar renovation in 1991.
Stay tuned for the latest updates on the proposed plan to renovate and relocate MSG once again.
