Between 2000 and 2011, the PANYNJ worked with Vornado Realty Trust, which had partnered with the Lawrence Ruben Company. In November 2007, the PANYNJ announced the terms of an agreement in which it would receive nearly $500 million in a lease arrangement for a new office tower that would also provide funds for additional terminal facilities. It would include of commercial space in a new office tower, which was to use the vanity address 20 Times Square, the addition of of new retail space in the bus terminal, as well as 18 additional departure gates, accommodating 70 additional buses carrying up to 3,000 passengers per hour. New escalators would be installed to help move passengers more quickly between the gate area and the ground floor. Construction was expected to begin in 2009 or 2010, and take four years to complete. After an architectural competition, the PANYNJ selected the design by Pritzker Prize-winning architect Richard Rogers from Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners for a 45-story office tower with an overall height of . The agreement expired in August 2009, and in May 2010, Vornado was given a retroactive extension on the deadline to August 2011. In July 2011, Vornado announced they had found a new partner to partially finance the tower, but in November 2011, the new backers pulled out of the project.