The Metropolitan Transportation Authority is spending about $4 million a year to maintain its empty former headquarters in Midtown thanks to a dispute between the city and state.
The agency announced that it planned to sell or lease the 20-story complex at 341, 345 and 347 Madison Avenue back in 2011, and in 2016, it developed plans to lease the headquarters to Boston Properties for 99 years, according to the Wall Street Journal. MTA officials estimated that the deal would be worth about $1.3 billion, and Boston Properties hoped to build an office tower rising up to 900,000 square feet on the site.
However, the city opposed the deal because the terms said the developer would pay the MTA rather than pay real estate taxes to the city. The MTA expected those payments to be worth $961 million for the length of the lease.
The MTA hopes to resolve these issues soon, and although some said the poor relationship between Mayor Bill de Blasio and Governor Andrew Cuomo was behind the dispute, MTA Chair Joe Lhota told the Journal that this was not the case.
“There has been nothing acrimonious about our negotiation and interaction,” he said. [WSJ] – Eddie Small