City unveils $3B waterfront development plan

The Bloomberg Administration is planning to release a 10-year, $3 billion-plus plan to clean up and redevelop the city’s 520 miles of waterfront property today that calls for more than 130 projects over the next three years, according to the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. The 190-page initiative, which includes more than 50 acres of new waterfront parks, 14 new esplanades and a new ferry service, consolidates many proposals already on the table and makes them a high priority for city officials and especially Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who hopes the plan will become part of his legacy. Most of the project will be paid for through water rates collected by the city’s Department of Environmental Protection, which will oversee $2.57 billion worth of the projects. The rest, around $700 million in development projects slated to start before Bloomberg leaves office, will be funded by taxpayers. The money for those projects, like the remainder of Brooklyn Bridge Park and the East River Esplanade, has already been allocated. Among the newly-announced projects: a reconstruction of the public access pier at 44th Drive in Long Island City, a new public waterfront esplanade at the Beach 80th Street Marina in the Rockaways and a new restaurant to replace the old floating docks at the Dyckman Street Marina in Inwood. If Bloomberg’s initiative is successful, said Roland Lewis, chief executive of the Metropolitan Waterfront Alliance, he “could rightfully be called the waterfront mayor.” [WSJ] and [NYT]