NEW YORK, NY.- Madison Square Garden, which bills itself as the world’s most famous arena, appears to have lost its bid to operate in perpetuity on top of Pennsylvania Station in Manhattan.

On Monday, two New York City Council committees voted to grant Madison Square Garden Entertainment a five-year operating permit, half the length of its current 10-year operating permit that expired last month.

If the full City Council defers to the committees’ stance as expected when it votes in September, it will give the Garden its shortest permit in its history; its initial permit was for 50 years.

“At this time the Council cannot determine the long-term viability of an arena at this location, therefore five years is an appropriate term for this special permit,” said Erik Bottcher, a Manhattan council member whose district encompasses Madison Square Garden.

At issue is the Garden’s relationship with Penn Station, the country’s most heavily used train station and an unavoidable bane for hundreds of thousands of New York commuters. Generations of improvement efforts have fallen through, thanks in no small part to the presence of the 20,000-seat arena on top, which thrusts many support columns into the station below.

For years, urbanists and civic leaders have dreamed of getting Madison Square Garden to move elsewhere in Manhattan, freeing up the station below for a true overhaul. The Dolan family, which controls the Garden, has only fleetingly considered the idea.

Followings years of disappointment, some of those same urbanists have given up on that dream. Others still clamor for it.

New York City has one major lever at its disposal in forcing Madison Square Garden to come to the table: The city requires venues with more than 2,500 seats to get special permits to operate, though land-use peculiarities have exempted many other arenas from those requirements.

In July, the New York City Planning Commission, the majority of whose members are appointed by the mayor, recommended that the Garden’s permit be renewed for a decade, provided the Garden improve the pedestrian experience outside the station, and work with the railroads. Critics worried that the city would find it difficult to enforce that proviso.

This shorter-term deal calls for Madison Square Garden to develop a plan to improve truck loading operations at the Garden, which now rely on the use of local streets, “effectively privatizing” them, according to the City Council. The Garden has to report back to the Planning Commission within six months on its progress. The planning chair could theoretically penalize Madison Square Garden for failing to develop an adequate plan by revoking its operating permit. The City Council plan does not appear to require the Garden to improve the public space around Penn Station by installing planters and benches.




“A short-term special permit is not in anyone’s best interest and undermines the ability to immediately revamp Penn Station and the surrounding area,” a statement from Madison Square Garden said. “The committees have done a grave disservice to New Yorkers today, in a shortsighted move that will further contribute to the erosion of the City — that’s true now and will be true five years from now.”

Those lobbying for an even shorter term include three state legislators who represent the neighborhood, as well as good-government groups, who argue that a shorter renewal would keep the Garden on a tighter leash.

At 9:30 a.m. Monday, one of those legislators, state Sen. Liz Krueger, received a copy of a proposal that she said was supported by the governor and the City Council.

The state and Council leadership wanted Krueger to persuade Bottcher, the local council member to whom his colleagues are likely to defer, to support the deal, she said.

Krueger demurred, citing the rushed nature of the proposal, which included a complicated operating permit renewal process that she said she had a hard time understanding.

“I come out of the Cuomo era,” Krueger said. “I assume there’s a bunch of poison pills in there that I don’t want to go near.”

Negotiations continued throughout the day Monday, forcing repeated delays of the committee votes.

The brevity of the new permit could theoretically strengthen the city’s and state’s hand in negotiations with the Dolan family, by creating an uncertain business environment for the arena’s owners, who might be loath to invest serious money into the Garden that they have no guarantee of amortizing over a lengthier time frame.

But the Dolan family has shown itself adept at bending the will of the government to advance its own interests, particularly when the various branches of government are not on the same page.

For now, policymakers are locked in a separate debate over how best to proceed with the renovation of Penn Station, while the Garden remains in place.

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority, whose CEO is Janno Lieber and which has indicated it would like to lead the process, has one plan, while an Italian infrastructure firm, ASTM North America, has proposed an alternative concept, which has won the support of some local elected officials. That firm is led by Patrick Foye, who, as the MTA’s former CEO, was on paper Lieber’s boss.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.