Hudson River Park Trust CEO Madelyn Wils and Pier 40
Hudson River Park supporters are becoming more amenable to the possibility of big development on Pier 40, south of Houston Street, as the park’s financial situation becomes increasingly dire. According to Crain’s, the Hudson River Park Trust is considering allowing 800 apartments and a 150-room hotel on the crumbling pier, in an effort to raise money to maintain the five-mile long park. [more]
Pier 40
Pier 40 could be home to a new 600,000-square-foot housing development. The Villager reported that a new study focused on the best ways to enhance the economic outlook for the cash-strapped Hudson River Park proposes housing on the pier as a way to bring in some income and save the now-decaying pier. [more]
Hudson River Park (credit: Hudson River Park)
The Hudson River Park Trust is currently working to push through a bill that would grant it power to issue bonds, the Wall Street Journal reported. The trust and lawmakers in Albany are now going over ways to form the legislation, which the trust wants to have passed before the legislative session ends in June. [more]
The new Pier 25 on Hudson River Park in Tribeca will open to the public today at 3 p.m. At 900 feet long, the pier is almost the length of five city blocks and is the largest open space to be built in Manhattan since Central Park. The pier includes an 18-hole miniature golf course, a snack bar, beach volleyball courts, moorings for small boats and a children’s playground. “Construction is being completed today,” Noreen Doyle, executive vice president of the Hudson River Park Trust, told Crain’s. “We’re still doing some punch-test work.” Most of the funding for Pier 25, which began construction in 2006, came from the Lower Manhattan Development Corp. The Hudson River Park Trust is also working on developing other piers, including Pier 26, which will feature a boathouse that will double as a cafe and a river research and education center, and is slated for completion in 2012. [Crain's]
After five years of construction, Pier 25 and its surrounding areas
along the Hudson River are slated to open in October, while the future
of Pier 26 remains uncertain, according to the Downtown Express. Pier
25 will keep some of its original attractions such as mini-golf and beach
volleyball, with the addition of a new playground, water taxi station
and turf field, shedding its older appearance for a more modern one.
The construction was needed on the pier’s wooden foundation, which was
decomposing and becoming a safety hazard, the Downtown Express reported. Other construction is being
done in nearby Tribeca Upland, a recreational strip along the Hudson
south of Pier 25, which is getting a basketball court and skate park. The
H.R.P.T. real estate investment trust covers infrastructure costs for
Pier 25 and will hold a public bidding process for operational control
of the pier later in the summer. Then it
is expected to take about one month for the H.R.P.T. to select an
operator. [Downtown Express]
Hudson River Park, the five-mile waterfront band stretching from Battery Park to 59th Street, is so short on cash that City Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe is warning that it may soon reach “crisis” levels, unable to generate enough cash for necessary maintenance. The park is supposed to generate its $15 million annual operating budget on its own. Nearly half of that comes from parking fees at Pier 40 at Houston Street — for which the state sought a major developer but never found one — according to Connie Fishman, president of the Hudson River Park Trust. The pier’s crumbling roof has resulted in the closure of 160 parking spaces this year, worth an estimated $600,000 in funds, and more closings could be imminent, Fishman said. Some advocates say the government is at fault for pitting the park’s success on deals with developers that might never pan out, while refusing to pay for services with state funds. A development at Pier 40 would have paid for the pier’s renovation and generated additional revenue for the park. Hudson River Park is expected to increase in size by 25 percent next year with new sections opening. “We will have more park to operate and less money available,” Fishman said. [Post]
Manhattan’s East Siders are getting shafted when it comes to being able to enjoy the island’s waterfront, according to William Oddo, a longtime Stuyvesant Town resident and former Community Board 6 member. Whereas West Siders have gained an array of water access points in recent years, from Hudson River Park to Riverside Park and their adjacent piers, the East Side has seen little development to match. Oddo, who is also an engineer, has been working to change that. After founding Stuyvesant Cove Park, which opened in 2002 between 18th and 23rd streets on the East River, Oddo has set his sights on a small pier 100 feet offshore, connected by gangways. He has applied for $825,000 in funding from the Environmental Protection Fund through the city. Oddo envisions a place where East Siders can escape from the city and from the noise of the highways. [Villager]
