Starbucks Is Headed for the Port Authority

Yana Paskova for The New York Times A new Statrbucks is scheduled to open soon next to Casa Java coffee shop at the Port Authority bus terminal.

They may have to rename it the Port Authority Buzz Terminal.

Commuters passing through the city’s main bus depot in Midtown already have several options for a place to grab a cup of coffee. There are cafes on all levels, including a large Au Bon Pain outlet that faces Casa Java, a shop dedicated to serving coffee in a range of strengths and flavors.

But unlike just about every other major transportation hub in the metropolitan area, the bus terminal has never had a Starbucks. Commuters craving Frappucinos have had to walk as much as a block in any direction to sate their thirsts.

That void is scheduled to be filled this spring when a Starbucks opens side by side with Casa Java on the main floor of the terminal, on Eighth Avenue between 40th and 41st Streets. It will fill a space left vacant when a Zaro’s bakery closed a couple of years ago.

“If you had to draw an X at the most prime spot in the terminal, that would be it,” said Stephen Napolitano, the terminal’s general manager. “That’s my Fifth Avenue, if you will.”

Yana Paskova for The New York Times The Cake Boss Cafe opened late last year at the Port Authority.

Mr. Napolitano said he believed all of the cafes could coexist because there are so many customers to serve. He said about 250,000 people flow through the building each weekday. Most are commuters, but some get on or off long-haul buses.

The Starbucks lease is part of an effort to revive some of the moribund ground-floor spaces in the building. Late last year, the first Cake Boss Café opened in the storefront in the northeast corner of the terminal on 42nd Street.

That space, which once housed a Duane Reade drugstore, sat vacant for years while a developer, Vornado Realty Trust, tried to arrange to construct a 40-story tower over the north wing. Another main-floor space in that wing is being filled with a two-level branch of PNC bank, the first full-service bank branch in the building, Mr. Napolitano said.

He said the Port Authority had decided to stop waiting for a resolution of Vornado’s interest in the “air rights” over the tower and to find tenants for the building while West Midtown is on the upswing.

“The decisions were made to move forward and whatever happens with the air-rights deal will happen,” Mr. Napolitano said. “That’s why you see the Cake Boss in there now.”