M.T.A. Board Approves Related West Side Yards Deal

Now it's really official: the M.T.A. board this afternoon voted to approve a deal with the Related Companies and Goldman Sachs to develop over the 26-acre West Side rail yards.

A few nuggets of rail yards info from the meeting: According to M.T.A. CFO Gary Dellaverson, who summarized negotiations to the board, the key to the Related Companies' victory was its willingness to literally pick up the $1.054 billion Tishman Speyer deal and sign it, only inserting one notable change.

The other two firms remaining, Extell Development and Durst Organization/Vornado Realty Trust, came back with formidable bids—Durst/Vornado had bid within $40 million of Tishman Speyer and Extell raised its bid to no more than $900 million—but were both unwilling to sign the designation letter that came as the result of weeks of negotiations with Tishman.

“They reflected seven weeks of extensive and difficult detail negotiations,” Mr. Dellaverson said. “The Related/Goldman team, which was very persistent and aggressive ... didn’t have those kinds of conditions, and when we got to the weekend, Related was up to $1 billion on the fixed price.”