Degnan said that the ideas would serve as inspiration in an ongoing design process. "I view this as a significant step forward," he said. "It was never the intent that we would come up with one concept that we would move forward with. The eventual design could be an amalgamation of some of the ideas that are raised here."

Further clouding the competition's results were questions of whether the submissions would be nullified by an agreement reached Tuesday between West Side elected officials and the Port Authority, in which the agency agreed to an expanded planning process for the terminal project that would better include the public and other stakeholders in the process.

"I don't think any of these five designs are likely to survive," Rep. Jerrold Nadler, one of the officials who had protested the terminal's planning process, told Crain's. "We are opposed to considering these proposals, or any that don't come out of a more comprehensive planning process. These came out of a process where there was limited planning criteria, and that's wrong."

Nadler said that Tuesday's agreement meant the Port Authority had to essentially restart planning for the new terminal to better evaluate how it should operate alongside other transit infrastructure in the region, and whether portions of it should be located outside of the West Side of Manhattan, including in New Jersey—an idea that Degnan has vigorously resisted. Earlier this year, Degnan pushed for the facility's redevelopment to be included in the Port Authority's capital budget and demanded that its replacement be developed exclusively on the West Side of Manhattan.

It remains to be seen how the ideas from the design competition will be incorporated into or influence the ultimate design for the project, but here they are (some are more conservative than others):

Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects proposed a relatively compact terminal to be built exclusively on Port Authority-owned land just west of the current facility between West 38th and West 40th streets that would cost $3.7 billion to construct—the lowest-priced plan in the competition. The project removes bus ramps that feed into the current facility, freeing up land for as much as 10 million square feet of private commercial and residential development, which would generate revenue for the Port Authority.

Arcadis offered a plan with a similar footprint as the Pelli Clarke design, but it would avoid eminent domain. The proposal included repurposing a tunnel under the current bus terminal as a pedestrian connection into the subway station at Times Square. Its project cost is $4.2 billion.

AECOM submitted a proposal to locate the terminal entirely underground below the current facility—an idea that it estimated would cost $15.3 billion to build, nearly 50% above previous estimates for the project.

Perkins Eastman suggested locating the bus terminal on an existing basement level in the Javits Center, where it could connect directly into the Lincoln Tunnel via new subterranean ramps and provide commuters a connection to the new Hudson Yards No. 7 subway station. The firm estimated it would cost $5.4 billion to construct.

Archilier Architecture Consortium imagined expanding the bus terminal into a substantially larger 4 million-square-foot facility with a 9.8-acre rooftop park. Most of the expansion would be built on Port Authority-owned land west of its current facility. The group claims its $7 billion design would accommodate the 340,000 daily commuters that the Port Authority estimates will pass through the terminal by 2040. But its plan relies on the use of eminent domain to seize several properties on West 40th Street, on the north side of the street just west of Ninth Avenue.