NEW YORK | Pier 57 development

[BINARY SYSTEM]

‘People’s Pier’ vs. Performing Arts Center pitched for Pier 40, NYC

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By Lincoln Anderson http://www.thevillager.com/villager_191/peoplespiervsperforming.html

A glitzy “Downtown Lincoln Center” on the Hudson — with stilt-walking Cirque du Soleil performers clomping over soccer fields adding festive atmosphere to the Tribeca Film Festival’s new maritime home — or a teeming sports, day-camp and academic complex devoted to building healthy young bodies and minds, are the two competing redevelopment proposals for Pier 40.

The Pier 40 Working Group got its first look at the proposals for the 14-acre W. Houston St. pier last week. It turns out what was believed to have been four legitimate submissions are in fact only two, with the other two being “not serious,” according to Arthur Schwartz, the working group’s chairperson.

The pair of competing proposals couldn’t be more different. One — a joint venture of The Related Companies, Cirque du Soleil and the Tribeca Film Festival — calls for turning Pier 40 into the Pier 40 Performing Arts Center, or Pier 40 PAC, for short. Drawing a projected 2.7 million visitors a year, it would have a high impact on the Hudson River Park and surrounding neighborhood.

Dubbed Pier 40 – The People’s Pier, the other proposal — by Urban Dove and CampGroup — would augment the pier’s already substantial sports facilities, while adding space for high school and college academic programs. As opposed to the PAC, it would have a relatively low impact on the area and park.

In September, the Hudson River Park Trust issued a request for proposals, or R.F.P., from developers for the pier, with a Nov. 17 deadline. A similar R.F.P. process for the pier two years ago was a failure, ending without any developer being chosen. But the Trust, the state-city authority that operates and is building the 5-mile-long waterfront park, is giving it another try because it wants the pier to generate more revenue for the park, which is intended to be self-sustaining. (The parking operation on the pier currently generates $5 million annually for the Trust.) Also, the 44-year-old pier needs a renovation, which the Pier 40 master-lease holder would have to finance, as well as funding the pier’s upkeep over the term of the lease, which would be from 30 to 49 years.

Two years ago, some of the R.F.P. submissions included big-box stores, which sparked massive opposition among neighboring residents. In response, the Trust’s latest R.F.P. specifically stated that big-box stores would not be permitted, which might explain why there were fewer proposals this time.

Pier 40 PAC is the more ambitious proposal in terms of the sheer amount of construction involved and its price tag — $626 million — which is more than the cost of the entire park itself.

According to the R.F.P. submission, done by The Related Companies, Pier 40 PAC “will become the premier destination spot for evening activity in Downtown Manhattan, delivering an exciting combination of entertainment activities, bustling with activity.... Practically, 600,000 square feet of continuous development site is near impossible to assemble in New York City. The opportunity here is powerful,” the proposal states.

The PAC plan includes an 84,000-square-foot Cirque du Soleil theater — home to 75 acrobats and dancers — as well as a 10,000-square-foot Cirque du Soleil restaurant, 30,000-square-foot Cirque nightclub, a V.I.P. lounge and 9,000-square-foot Cirque CD’s shop.

Also part of the complex would be a 60,000-square-foot multiplex movie theater programmed by the Tribeca Film Festival, which would be a screening venue for the festival, while showing art films and independent films the rest of the year. Additionally, the Cirque theater would be used for four weeks each year as a screening venue for the film festival.

During the film festival, the actual Cirque shows in the theater would go on hiatus, but the Cirque performers would still be busy; the buskers, acrobats and dancers would “spill out onto the environment,” enlivening the pier, the proposal notes.

A 45,0000-square-foot music hall for live performances is another component of the PAC proposal.

And a 45,000-square-foot grand ballroom/event space would be suitable, the proposal notes, for “after-parties for the Grammy Awards, the MTV Music Awards and the VH1 Diva Awards” or even spillover for events from the Auto Show at the Javits Center.

Plans also call for a 15,000-square-foot space called the “Beach Club,” but there is no description of what exactly it would be.

There would also be 37,000 square feet of small-scale “destination” and “specialty” retail, 58,000 square feet of restaurant space and a 50-slip marina.

The PAC plan calls for demolishing the southern half of the pier’s two-story “doughnut”-shaped pier shed structure. This southern side of the pier would feature a plaza, bordered by four restaurants. In the summer the plaza would be used by a farmers’ market, and in winter would be converted to an ice-skating rink to attract visitors to the pier during the cold weather.

The northern side of the pier shed would be left standing, and the Cirque du Soleil theater would be built on top of it at the pier’s northwest corner. Meanwhile, the pier’s western edge would see a new, glass-enclosed Winter Garden with public restrooms.

Above, a rendering of the Pier 40 Performing Arts Center, or PAC, proposal. Below, a massing diagram identifying some of the PAC proposal’s main facilities.

Filling the doughnut

In Pier 40 PAC, the pier’s central, 400-square-foot courtyard would be filled in with new construction for the complex, and the heavily used artificial-turf sports fields currently located there would be rebuilt on 227,000 square feet of space on the roof on the pier’s northern edge — with, the proposal notes, a “softer substructure” for the fields, making them safer and better.

As for preserving other existing uses on the pier, there is provision for about 1,850 parking spaces in the proposal, as well as space for the Trust’s administrative offices. The Performing Arts Center project would take three years to complete, and Related feels that by installing ramps into the courtyard, about 800 parking spaces could still function during the renovation. But the sports fields would apparently be out of commission.

Accommodation would also be made on the pier for the Trapeze School currently located in the park at DesBrosses St.

On the other hand, the Pier 40 – The People’s Park plan is less an overhaul of the pier than a preservation of the existing structure.

The proposal’s main development partners are CampGroup — owned by Benerofe Properties — and Urban Dove, a local nonprofit group helping students through athletics and other programs. The People’s Pier plan is geared more toward the surrounding community, rather than transforming the pier into a major destination.

“The People’s Pier is not just a name,” Mark Benerofe of Benerofe Properties wrote in his cover letter on their Pier 40 R.F.P. submission. “It symbolizes a belief that this extraordinary property belongs to the residents of the city that surrounds it.”

The emphasis in this proposal is athletics and education, as well as maintaining the community’s long-term pier parking. The pier’s existing sports fields would be kept where they are now in the central courtyard, where they would continue to be better sheltered from the elements than were they moved to the rooftop, the proposal states.

In total, the plan would create 33 percent more open space than required under the Hudson River Park Act, which mandates that the equivalent of 50 percent of the pier’s footprint be set aside for public open space, while the rest of the pier is allowed to be developed commercially.

With so much open space, the submission notes, “The People’s Pier will be able to host major national and regional sporting events that will showcase the city and its waterfront.” The Special Olympics New York wrote a letter of interest in the People’s plan, noting the pier “could be a centerpiece facility” for their national or international games.


Even more fields

The pier’s 300,000 square feet of existing recreation space would be preserved under the plan, while 85,000 square feet of new artificial-turf fields would be added on the pier shed’s southern rooftop.

In addition, there would be eight new indoor multi-use courts, locker rooms and related offices created in 75,000 square feet of space under a new rooftop structure to be built atop Pier 40’s northern edge; this facility would be the new home to Urban Dove’s Net Gain program, under which Urban Dove provides basketball court time for students from schools that lack courts. Urban Dove had been providing this service at Basketball City at Pier 63 for 450 students from 18 public high schools. However, in September, the Trust forced Basketball City to vacate the W. 23rd St. pier to allow construction of a park there.

Sizeable swimming pools — 4½ feet deep, two indoor, totaling 23,000 square feet, and one 24,000-square-foot outdoor pool — would be built under the People’s plan.

CampGroup would build an additional 100,000 square feet of facilities, and run a “high-quality day camp” from mid-June to mid-August each year.

The plan calls for increasing the amount of car parking spaces by about 500 to 2,584. Both The People’s Pier and Pier 40 PAC include parking stackers to use space more efficiently.

The People’s Pier proposal also calls for a 75,000-square-foot New York City public high school and an 80,000-square-foot university or college complex, both to be located — like the new basketball courts — within the new rooftop shed on the pier’s north side. Letters of interest have been sent to the project team from several schools.

Nate Dudley, principal of New York Harbor School — which focuses on marine science and marine technology — wrote that Pier 40 would be a good spot for a middle school to feed the Harbor School high school planned for Governors Island.

“Pier 40 is an ideal location for our first feeder middle school, and is a place that our current students already use for their maritime activities,” Dudley noted.

Akiva Kobre, Touro College senior vice president, wrote that the school has undergraduate and graduate programs focusing on health and obesity that would benefit from being located at Pier 40.

“We believe the location, the amount of space available and the synergies that exist with your other tenants makes Pier 40 an ideal location for us and our students,” Kobre wrote.

Eduardo N. del Valle, City University of New York interim vice chancellor, wrote that Pier 40 “is a unique and exciting piece of property with great potential for the type of development you [The People’s Pier] are proposing.”

Additionally, under the People’s plan, the pier’s southern promenade would be widened 10 feet, by cutting back the pier shed, and would have some commercial amenities, including a cafe on the finger pier.

Offices for the Trust, a facility for the Trapeze School and a marina would also be included.

As part of CampGroup’s proposal, a pedestrian bridge spanning the West Side Highway connecting to Pier 40 would be requested from the State Department of Transportation.


Build it and They’ll come

The People’s Pier plan is supported by The Pier Park & Playground Association, a nonprofit group based at Pier 40 that advocates for increased youth athletic opportunities on the Lower West Side. In a phone interview, Tobi Bergman, P3’s president, said the increase of existing athletic uses and the plan’s low impact are attractive. On the other hand, the Pier 40 PAC could lead to a radical transformation of the area, he contended.

“It would turn the Village into Times Square and Broadway,” Bergman said of the arts center plan. “This represents the same kind of threat to the neighborhood that the Trump condo-hotel tower [under construction at Spring and Varick Sts.] represents — to really transform the Village in a way it’s never been transformed before. It’s not just a park issue. People will start seeing what kind of other entertainment uses can come in. I want to know how they’re going to get 2.7 million people there” without detrimentally impacting the neighborhood, he said.

Schwartz of the Pier 40 Working Group said most of the group’s 18 members withheld comment on the proposals at their meeting last week, wanting to read the voluminous plans.

Noting that the Hudson River Park Act restricts the types of uses on Pier 40, Schwartz noted that the two latest proposals represent “two extremes.”

“It’s a tough project,” he said, “because you can’t have big-box retail, you can’t have commercial offices, you can’t have residential, you can’t have hotels — and where are developers putting their money these days?”

Schwartz predicted there will be “a lot of opposition” to the arts center. And he acknowledged the importance of sports to the park.

“The reason the Hudson River Park got built is because the Downtown youth sports leagues got mobilized” to push for the passage of the Hudson River Park Act in 1998, he said.

Yet, Schwartz said the working group is also reserving the right not to endorse either plan.

“For me, leaving it alone remains a distinct possibility,” he said.

By contrast, Bergman said P3 strongly hopes the Trust does decide to pick the CampGroup plan, since the pier needs the renovation.

“The pier is too valuable” not to renovate it, Bergman said. “I would like to see the pier and the existing structure improved. The facility’s functioning very well now, but it needs an upgrade.” Bergman contended the Trust would be “embarrassed” if this second Pier 40 R.F.P. process also fails, and that the Trust doesn’t want that to happen.

The Trust set a 90-day timeline for picking a developer following the Nov. 17 R.F.P. submission deadline. But it seems unlikely that schedule will be met, since the administration change in Albany with Democrat Eliot Spitzer taking over as governor from Republican George Pataki on Jan. 1 will complicate the process. The Trust’s board of directors — on which Spitzer has five appointees, including the chairperson — will be shaken up. Carol Ash, Spitzer’s new State Parks Department commissioner, has already replaced her predecessor, Bernadette Castro, on the Trust board.

“It’ll affect it a lot,” Schwartz said of Spitzer’s election on the Pier 40 process. “I expect there will be five new trustees and a new chairperson. I would think it would slow it down. Spitzer has hundreds of agency positions to fill,” he said, noting the Trust’s board is probably not the new governor’s top priority.

Asked about the R.F.P. process and where it stands, Chris Martin, the Trust’s spokesperson, said, “Pier 40’s redevelopment is important, as its infrastructure is in need of repair and would require a substantial capital investment by the Trust to execute.” He didn’t comment on when a decision might be made.

[BINARY SYSTEM]

I think it deserves its own thread over here in this forum.

[NYguy]

This thing has been back and forth for so long, I don't know that they will ever make a final decision.

BTW, you should put the city of the development in the thread title, not everyone's up on it.

[BINARY SYSTEM]

http://img246.imageshack.us/img246/8089/pac6jd.jpg

That is the Performing Arts Center (above) that is being debated from the other render posted above, The Peoples Pier.

No need to get into to further detail until the final design and construction begins...Mmk:yes: ...

[nomarandlee]

wow, that project looks awesome

[NYguy]

Throw this one into the mix...

Tribeca Trib

CB1 Committee Rejects Plans for Pier 26

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By Carl Glassman
MARCH 13, 2007

A task force of Community Board 1 members rejected plans by the Hudson River Park Trust’s (HRPT) for a boathouse and restaurant on Tribeca’s Pier 26. A resolution passed by the group on March 12 calls on the Trust to scrap much of the plans and start over, in consultation with the board and others who use the piers.

The Task Force, assembled by Julie Nadel, chair of the board’s Waterfront Committee, hopes to have a say over the structures and operations on the rebuilt pier, which also is expected to include a marine study center. For now, however, there is no money for any public amenities on Pier 26, located near Hubert Street. The Trust has applied to the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation for funds to build the structures.

The group criticized the boathouse plans as both overly fancy and too small and complained that the Trust was creating detailed plans for a restaurant while ignoring the marine center altogether.

An estuarium, the River Project, was on the pier for years before it and the Downtown Boathouse were closed for rebuilding in 2005. They say the restaurant violates the Hudson River Park Act, which prohibits commercial enterprises on the pier.

The plans show a two-story building, with an 8,700 square foot ground floor, split between the boathouse and the restaurant. The latter includes seating for about 220 people, including space for 100 diners on the pier, 80 inside the restaurant and 35 on an upper deck. The 5,600 square foot rooftop deck, to be used for public seating, extends over the restaurant and the boathouse.

The boathouse would occupy 5,200 square feet and include amenities, such as showers, heating and toilets, that were not provided in the shed that the kayakers on Pier 26 had used for many years.

Jim Wetteroth, who ran the Downtown Boathouse’s public kayaking program before Pier 26 and Pier 25 were closed, said the new boathouse would be about one-third smaller, with half the storage area for kayaks. The original boathouse, Wetteroth said, served its purposes well in the years since it was founded in 1987. He said he wants to see another simple structure on the pier when it is rebuilt. The proposed amenities, he said, will make the structure unnecessarily expensive.

“The boathouse is just a support building for public activity,” Wetteroth said. “It shouldn’t be elaborate. The exterior should look attractive and the interior should be plain and fireproof.”

Nadel, who serves on the HRPT board, has been an outspoken critic of the agency’s handling of plans for the pier, which she complains has ignored public opinion. She believes scaled-down plans would be easier to fund, simpler to maintain, and quicker to put up after the pier is rebuilt next year.

She and others complain that mistakes were made in the design of a boathouse on Pier 96, and they don’t want them repeated on Pier 26. “We need a seat at that table so they don’t go do this again,” she said of the construction drawings, which the task force reviewed at the March 12 meeting.

Chris Martin, a vice president and spokesman for the Trust, takes exception to the claims that the Trust has ignored community wishes, citing the involvement of CB1 and others in the process and the board’s 2002 resolution in support of the Trust’s concepts for the pier. He defended the “fancy” items criticized by the boaters, saying the boathouse is meant to be around for 50 years and has to “change with the times.”

“A shower is not going to make or break the building of the boathouse,” he said. “If anything, it will make it better and more useable by more people.”

The group said the Trust should provide interim use of the piers after they are reconstructed, even if funding for permanent structures has not been found. “It could be a prefab building. How much could that cost?” said Nadel. “But get something back as soon as possible for the public. And not a restaurant.”

[NYguy]

http://www.nysun.com/article/53312

Battle of Pier 40 Heats Up Over Big Developments

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A rendering of a proposed redesign of Pier 40 that would include a theater and a venue for a circus.

By ELIOT BROWN
Aril 27, 2007

A showdown on the future of a West Side pier is set for next week, as community residents are pledging to turn out in force for a public hearing regarding two development proposals.

One of the city's largest developers wants to radically transform a large West Side pier that serves mostly as a parking garage and soccer fields into a giant hub of activity comprising an independent film theater, restaurants, retail shops, and a venue for the Cirque du Soleil.

A public hearing is scheduled for next week. Critics are vowing to fight against the proposal, which they have dubbed "Vegas on the Hudson."

Earlier this month, the Related Companies submitted its revised and final plan for the 14-acre pier: a more than $600 million proposal for Pier 40, just off West Houston Street, which would create a giant hub of activity along the mostly tranquil strip of parkland and bring a destination-entertainment complex to the mainly undeveloped side of the West Side Highway. Related is proposing to completely overhaul the pier with its planned complex, trumpeting the presence of recreational fields, open space, about 65,000 square feet of retail shops, and a farmer's market.

Seemingly in an attempt to leverage the popularity of two cultural institutions, the developer is pushing the presence of a year-round home for the Tribeca Film Festival and the colorful Cirque du Soleil within its plan.

The competing developer, the Camp Group, is proposing a more modest recreational and education facility that has attracted less attention.

Because the designs were first released late last year, community opposition has been tough and unified, with critics decrying the idea of a tourist hot-spot that would take the place of community recreation space and spread uncharacteristic development to the adjacent neighborhood.

"Clearly this is a regional tourist destination that would have little connection to the neighborhood and would solely be an attraction to tourists," the executive director of the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation, Andrew Berman, said of Related's proposal. "If you have Vegas on the Hudson next door, the tendency will be to look to develop similar uses in the inland area — and that would be totally unacceptable."

Defenders of recreational space also have rallied against the proposal, saying tourists would detract from the character of the recreational facility and field that would have to be moved to what they say is a windy roof from the pier interior.

Related insists its development would better the facilities, adding recreational space and improving the field while giving much needed renovation to the pier.

Calling the development "uniquely New York," a spokeswoman for Related, Joanna Rose, said the project offers "vibrant community recreational uses with unparalleled access to the waterfront while presenting new cultural amenities desperately needed downtown, including a home for the TriBeCa Film Festival."

The pier currently holds a large yellow-brick, two-story building constructed in the 1960s, serving mostly as a parking lot and facility for soccer and other recreation in its open-air center.

The state- and city-managed Hudson River Park Trust owns the site. It issued a request for proposals from developers last year in an attempt to redevelop the onetime ocean liner terminal, ideally creating a revenue-generating facility that would help finance the park. The agency recognizes about $5 million a year in revenue from the site, a spokesman for the Hudson River Park Trust, Christopher Martin, said.

There are no assurances that any development would get built, as the Hudson River Park Trust could reject both proposals, and the City Council or Planning Commission could overturn zoning changes that would likely be required.

Mr. Martin said the proposals are being reviewed and that community input will play a role in the selection.

"We're certainly open to any kind of revenue that the pier can bring in, but we want it to be something that's amenable to the public," he said.

While community opposition has gathered around Related's proposal, the far more modest $145 million plan from the Camp Group has garnered significantly less attention. As it includes less revenue-generating services, such as recreational fields, a school, some retail and a marina, many in the community question the development company's ability to make any return on its investment while also offering adequate funding for the park trust.

A co-developer of the project, Jai Nanda, said the finances are indeed solid, especially supported by the inclusion of a day camp for children. "I know that the rumor is out there that we're not financially viable, but I think a lot of that is just perception," Mr. Nanda said. "People don't really realize that there's very strong and profitable businesses."

[NYguy]

http://www.nypost.com/seven/05012007/news/regionalnews/pier_preure_regionalnews_tom_topousis.htm

PIER PRE$$URE
STUDY RIPS INTO HUDSON PROJECT

By TOM TOPOUSIS
May 1, 2007

A plan to convert Pier 40 at Houston Street into a "People's Pier" with athletic fields and swimming pools is not financially feasible, a consultant hired by Hudson River Park Trust has concluded.

The report, compiled for the park's trustees and obtained by The Post, raises red flags about the proposal, calling into question the development team's financing for the $143 million project as well as its ability to pay the cash- strapped park adequate rent.

Bay Area Economics, a private consulting group, studied two competing proposals for Pier 40 and concluded that the People's Pier plan relies too heavily on unsecured public grants, lacks firm commitments from private commercial tenants and underestimates the cost of repairing the aging pier's pilings.

"These factors, in combination, pose substantial risk to [the trust] as the property owner," the report found.

Both proposals - the People's Pier and the competing plan, a performing-arts center anchored by Cirque du Soleil and the Tribeca Film Festival - go before a public hearing Thursday.

Developers behind the People's Pier called the findings "simply not true."

"Our feeling is that the report isn't getting all the facts right," said Jai Nanda of Urban Dove, a not-for-profit partner in the People's Pier project with The Camp Group, a firm that operates summer camps.

Marc Benerofe, of The Camp Group, insists the proposal only calls for $8 million in public grants but adds the project could go forward without the money.

And he said the People's Pier is less risky because it needs fewer zoning and environmental approvals.

The selection by the trust won't be the final say on the development. Either project will have to go through the city's exhaustive land-use review for final approval.

Both projects would be required to continue operating long-term parking for about 1,800 cars and would be required to set aside 300,000 square feet for public parks.

The $625 million performing-arts center, proposed by The Related Cos., would include a permanent home for Cirque du Soleil and a theater complex for the film festival as well as restaurants and stores.

Related's proposal would also include ball fields and a marina, but those fields would be relocated from their current location on the pier's lower level to a roof-top site, a move opposed by local sports groups.

Joanna Rose, a spokeswoman for Related, called the project "uniquely New York," although it's been dubbed by community opponents as "Las Vegas on the Hudson."

"It offers vibrant community recreational uses with unparalleled access to the waterfront while presenting new cultural amenities desperately needed downtown, including a home for the Tribeca Film Festival," Rose said.

http://www.nypost.com/seven/05012007/photos/news027.jpghttp://www.nypost.com/seven/05012007/photos/news027a.jpg

[-GR2NY-]

I didn't read the 4 news stories in full, but I have a question.

Let say I'm somewhere in midtown, what would make me want head out to pier 40 that I can't already find in the city?

[NYguy]

I didn't read the 4 news stories in full, but I have a question.

Let say I'm somewhere in midtown, what would make me want head out to pier 40 that I can't already find in the city?

Pier 40 is in the city, on the Hudson. It's not meant as a destination just for the people of Midtown, no more so than Coney Island, or the rest of the developments in the city. By the way, its not the only redevelopment of piers. Check the East River waterfront thread.

[NYguy]

Here's a shock....
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/03/nyregion/03pier.html?_r=1&ref=nyregion&oref=slogin

Fight Brews Over Plans to Reinvent Hudson Pier

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2007/05/03/nyregion/03pier_lg.jpg

Under a proposal for Pier 40 on the Hudson River, a parking garage would become an entertainment center housing the Cirque du Soleil.

By TIMOTHY WILLIAMS
May 3, 2007

A Hudson River pier built for ocean liners but now used mainly as a parking garage would become home to a large entertainment complex with permanent sites for the Cirque du Soleil and the Tribeca Film Festival as part of a proposal that has encountered significant opposition in Greenwich Village.

The $626 million plan by the Related Companies to turn sleepy Pier 40 — now the site of the garage and a few sports fields — into a cultural complex attracting 2.7 million visitors annually has been derided by its opponents as “Las Vegas on the Hudson.”

In addition to a theater for the Cirque du Soleil and a 12-screen cinema, the plan for the pier calls for an 1,800-seat music hall, a 28,650-square-foot event space and a glass-enclosed winter garden, as well as shops, restaurants, more athletic fields and more than 2,000 parking spaces. The proposal originally included a 15,000-square-foot “beach club” modeled after the SoHo House, a members-only club in the meatpacking district, but that idea has been scrapped.

A public hearing on the proposed complex, called the Pier 40 Performing Arts Center, is scheduled for tonight. A coalition of Greenwich Village groups have vowed to quash the plan, setting up a potential showdown between residents of one of the city’s most activist neighborhoods and Related, one of the city’s most politically connected developers.

Opponents of the plan say a performing arts center would bring traffic congestion and pollution, clash with the scale of the neighborhood and relegate popular athletic fields to a windy area on the two-story pier building’s roof.

“I think every strata of the neighborhood is opposed to this: the old guard, who has sought to retain the area’s character, the newcomers who live in the new buildings, the sports leagues who want more recreation space,” said Andrew Berman, the executive director of the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation. “There aren’t many things they all agree on, but this is one.”

But Joanna Rose, a spokeswoman for the Related Companies, said the plan would increase the amount of park space and could avoid creating traffic problems that would spill into the rest of the neighborhood.

“This plan could be a real win for New York and a true amenity to life downtown,” Ms. Rose said in a statement. “It increases the amount of space available for recreation by over 40 percent, while offering tremendous access to the waterfront, over five acres of passive open green spaces and vibrant cultural amenities, including a home for the Tribeca Film Festival.”

A competing consortium of developers has proposed a second plan, which would cost $145 million and would be known as the People’s Pier. The plan, which has drawn less community opposition, calls for building a high school, three swimming pools, shops and restaurants and additional space for parks and athletic fields.

The Hudson River Park Trust, the city-state agency that operates the park that surrounds Pier 40, said it must develop the pier to generate revenue for the upkeep of the five-mile park, which snakes along the Hudson from Chambers Street to 59th Street and is still under construction.

The park, chartered in 1998, was intended to be self-sustaining, with most of its revenue coming from activities on its piers. For example, the garage on Pier 40 brings the trust about $5 million annually. Each development proposal for Pier 40 would add several hundred parking spaces to the 1,800 already there.

“The question of that site for me is, How do we create a proposal that has economic viability, jobs and revenue for the rest of the park?” said Scott M. Stringer, the Manhattan borough president, who appoints three members to the trust’s 13-member board of directors. “We have to have something that does not overwhelm the park and the neighborhood.”

Pier 40 was built in 1954 for the Holland America Line as a commercial shipping terminal, but that function was made obsolete by commercial air travel.

The 14-acre pier, at West Houston Street, was used for storage, offices and a bus depot before it was converted to a public parking garage. In 1999, a soccer field was built atop the pier building, and other sports fields and park space have since been added. A trapeze school established at the pier several years ago would be retained as part of both proposals.

Over the years, plans to build a hotel, apartments, a flower market and a branch of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum at the pier have been proposed and rejected.

In 2003, the park trust called for new development ideas, but eventually rejected proposals for museums, television and film studios and an aquarium. One of the proposals, a plan to put a “big box” retailer on the pier, led to particularly fierce opposition in the neighborhood.

“You have a lot of people who border the park with an interest in having something developed that is great, and is worthy of the New York City waterfront,” said Christopher W. Martin, vice president of the park trust.

[NYguy]

http://downtownexpress.com/de_209/1500swarmpark.html

http://downtownexpress.com/de_209/PIER40.gif

Related’s revisions to its plans includes more field space at the south end of Pier 40, left, and fewer traffic lane entrances.


1,500 swarm park meeting

By Lincoln Anderson

More than 1,500 parents, Little Leaguers and budding David Beckhams — plus a crew hauling a 14-foot-long Whitehall rowboat complete with a sail — mobbed P.S. 41 last Thursday evening for a public hearing on Pier 40’s future.

Most came to defend the pier’s sports fields from possibly being shut down for up to 18 months — and to voice their outrage at the idea of Little Leaguers being set out to sea on barges as an interim plan.

They came to keep their mecca for sports from becoming “a mall.”

The boaters said they want to the pier to remain a place where small watercraft can find safe harbor.

At the start, the scene was total chaos, as the young players wearing uniforms— many were bused up by Tribeca and Battery Park City youth programs — and parents flooded into the W. 11th St. school’s lobby.

“Get me some water! I’m losing my voice!” Maryann Monte, a Hudson River Park Trust staffer, shouted above the din as she struggled to get everyone to sign in.

Four hundred people packed the school’s auditorium, with another 400 each filling the cafeteria and schoolyard. Shortly after the meeting’s 7 p.m. start, though, hundreds more were still outside, with a line stretching down 11th St., onto Sixth Ave. and winding around the corner onto 10th St. It was decided just to open the schoolyard gate on Greenwich Ave. and let everybody in — an estimated 300 more — and waive the sign-in.

Police officers and firefighters kept watch so that the rooms didn’t swell to over capacity. Audio and TV links to the cafeteria and yard allowed people there to follow the action in the auditorium.

It was by far the largest turnout anyone could remember for such a public hearing Downtown.

Concern is at an all-time high over the Trust’s plan to redevelop the 14-acre W. Houston St. pier. An earlier effort to do so by the state-city authority crashed in 2003, after which the pier’s courtyard was carpeted with artificial grass for sports fields under an interim plan. The fields have since become a treasured community asset in a park-starved part of town, and are in nearly constant use by the local youth sports leagues.

Two teams are vying to redevelop the pier. The Related Companies has joined with Cirque du Soleil and the Tribeca Film Festival in a $626 million proposal called “Pier 40 Performing Arts Center,” or “PAC,” to transform the pier into a major entertainment destination. The other proposal, by Urban Dove and CampGroup, called “The People’s Pier,” would cost $145 million and add a summer day camp and a school to the pier, as well as courts for public high school basketball teams and others to use.

Hudson River Park is supposed to be self-sustaining. The Trust — which is building the 5-mile-long park — is seeking a private developer to increase the revenue from the pier, which is currently $5 million to $6 million annually from the parking operation. The developer would also pay for the costly repair of the former shipping pier, which badly needs a rehab.

The developers are required to preserve the pier’s 1,800 parking spaces and provide sports field space at least equal to that currently on the pier. The Trust’s board of directors will ultimately decide which plan would be chosen, after which a public environmental review and uniform land use review procedure would occur. No schedule is set for selection of a developer or the review process.

In general, however, there wasn’t much support among the crowd for either plan. But it was Related’s vision for the pier that came in for the most savaging.

After the development teams made brief presentations, audience members were allowed to comment. About 50 did, and — in their own ways — all expressed their extreme anxiety about the pier’s future. They ranged from kayakers to residents of the tony new Morton Square high-rise building across from Pier 40 to T-ball-playing tykes.

“We say no to interim fields,” Tom Ellett, president of Greenwich Village Little League, said. “We say no to removing our fields! We say no to rooftop fields only! We say no to baseball on barges!

“You are the Hudson River Park Trust. It says ‘park’ in your name. Do the right thing for the children and families of our community,” Ellett said, as applause resounded through the auditorium.

Local politicians also weighed in. Assemblymember Deborah Glick expressed a similar sentiment and received similar rousing cheers when she said: “I believe that what’s presented to us here reflects humongous development. We were promised a waterfront park with small nodes of development; they [the nodes] develop a lot of money now.”

Also commenting were Borough President Scott Stringer, State Senators Tom Duane and Martin Connor and Councilmember Alan Gerson. All emphasized the importance of preserving the pier’s playing fields .

“The People’s Pier” plan was not without its critics. Bob Russo, of Downtown United Soccer Club, decried the idea of charging for use of the pier’s field and athletic space — though the Urban Dove/CampGroup only would do this for some of the spaces.

“They’re not giving us more [athletic space],” Russo said angrily, “and they’re charging market rate for use.” Meanwhile, of the “PAC” plan, he said, “We are an afterthought. Putting our kids on the roof…. Our kids need to be put on center stage — not on backstage.”

One of the few voices in favor of Related, Peggy Lewis, executive director of biz kids, inc., and several young actors in her program, wore artistic masks to the hearing. The acting program has had a space on the pier since 2001, and Lewis feels the pier needs the kind of repairs that Related will bring.

Lewis wondered why Pier 40 must completely be consumed by sports — in short, why Bohemia has become, well, “Baseball City.”

“My concern is exclusivity of Pier 40 as a sports pier. Why? Why?” she asked with a perplexed look. “We are in New York City, one of the largest, most fantastic arts cities in the world.”

But baseball caps at the hearing far outnumbered long-nosed theatrical masks.


‘The People’s Pier’

Jai Nanda, founder and executive director of Urban Dove — a nonprofit group helping youth through sports and other programs — assured the audience that “The People’s Pier” plan would not disrupt use of the existing main field space.

“The courtyard ball field is a safe haven for thousands of kids,” Nanda said. “Our plan keeps the courtyard ball field open year-round.” The crowd exploded with applause.

Nanda — who grew up in the Village and attended P.S. 3 — said that as a youth he used to play on a dirt lot on Mercer St. that was eventually replaced by New York University’s Coles Sports Center. His own experience typifies Downtown’s lack of playing field space, he said, noting, “It was from this reality that ‘The People’s Pier’ was born.”

Nanda added “The People’s Pier” plan won’t increase auto traffic to the pier.

Nanda said they will invest $30 million in the pier’s infrastructure, including fixing up the pier’s substructure and deteriorated piles. They would start by fixing only the piles around the edge of the pier, however, and would shore up the pier’s center at a later date. Nanda explained they could take this approach because the load of the central courtyard is less than that on the pier’s perimeter, which supports the two-story “doughnut”-like pier shed.

He said they would seek $8 million from the city and state to erect a roof over the pier’s northern edge under which there would be basketball courts for Urban Dove’s Net Gain program for public high school basketball teams that lack courts. If they don’t get the funds, they would erect a bubble on an interim basis, he said. Nanda said they feel public monies are appropriate for this structure, since it will support public use.

Though some critics have called the Urban Dove/CampGroup plan “underfunded,” Nanda said “The People’s Pier” plan — because it is less expensive — is more feasible.

“Our low impact, less costly approach is less risky [than the Related plan],” Nanda stated. A CampGroup representative stressed that they have financed and repaid $1 billion in loans in running their about a dozen camps.

In an interview afterward, Nanda clarified that all the pier’s existing field space would be free of charge and would continue to be programmed by the Trust. However, there would be a sliding fee for use of the new fields on the pier’s south rooftop, three new pools and the basketball courts. Nonprofit groups would get a low rate, corporate leagues would get market rate and some groups would even get free use, Nanda said.

The day camp — charging $1,000 a week per camper — would only use the south fields and pools for 10 weeks in the summer. The pools would be 4-feet deep, two indoor and one outdoor, large enough for competitions, with aboveground aluminum-tank construction.

Nanda said their plan would increase the pier’s open space by about 30 percent to 40 percent. He added that after seeing the demand at the hearing for keeping the pier’s indoor soccer field, they are now trying to work with the Trust to figure out how to keep it as part of their plan.

Asked about their proposal to add a school to the pier, Nanda said they have met with both the city’s Department of Education and Bill Gates’s New Visions organization, and have been advised that a sports or marine school would be most appropriate.

Also at the hearing, the Urban Dove/CampGroup’s plan to add a pedestrian bridge over West St. to the pier drew approving applause from parents concerned with the safety of their children while crossing the highway.


The ‘PAC’ pier

Jeff Blau, president of The Related Companies, started off by telling the 1,500-plus audience members, “We recognize that any development must be sensitive to your concerns.” He saw many “affordable soccer” signs in the audience and said those were a vote for the Related plan.

Noting Pier 40 has “suffered from years of neglect,” Blau said, “The Trust, the city and the state want the pier rebuilt. For safety, we are willing to commit $35 million to repair the pier.”

After Related’s first design for the pier was panned by the community earlier this year as too “glitzy Las Vegas” and too tall, Related retooled its design. The new design generally keeps within the envelope of the existing pier shed, except for the addition of a 120-foot-tall Cirque du Soleil fly tower on the pier’s northwest corner.

Also, Houston St. would be extended onto the pier via a pedestrian promenade that would house galleries, restaurants and retail space behind facades evoking the Lower West Side’s industrial past.

Related has expanded the amount of outdoor space in its new proposal, representing a 40 percent increase over the pier’s existing outdoor and field space. Most of the pier’s courtyard would be filled in. The pier’s current courtyard ball fields, as well as the smaller rooftop ball field on the pier’s southeast corner, would be moved to the northern section of the pier’s roof. In addition, more athletic space — possibly for basketball or tennis — would be created on the southern part of the pier’s rooftop. The existing indoor soccer field would be kept.

Blau added that Related is willing to add bubbles or tensile structures over the rooftop sports fields.

“All for the safety and comfort or your athletes,” he said. All athletic space would be free, programmed by the Trust.

The pier’s current sports fields would be closed for “one season” of sports during the construction, Blau said, though this could be up to 18 months. He apparently was not referring to soccer, which has fall and summer seasons. Related is exploring using barges for Little League and youth soccer during the interim.

Also in the new Related plan, a 57,000-square-foot real grass lawn on the pier’s south side replaces what would have been an amphitheater in the first plan. A “passive picnic park” on the roof in the pier’s southeast quadrant would also have real grass. More green space would be created on the pier’s east side where traffic would no longer drive across the pier’s front, but only in or out on two access roads.

Auto traffic to and from Pier 40 could be mitigated by controlling the starting and ending times of the pier’s various entertainment events, Blau added.

In addition, Related has added new safety measures regarding auto traffic entering and exiting the pier. The two crossings of the Hudson River Park bike path have been reduced from nine lanes to six lanes. Their new plan calls for on-foot safety agents to be posted at certain times and for stoplights, as exist at other points on the bike path. Bollards would prevent cars from entering the bike path.

Speaking later, Joanna Rose, a Related spokesperson, emphasized that Related not only will fix up the pier, but that giving the complex a long-term lease for the pier would provide ongoing revenue to “support the park for future generations.”

She said Related, Tribeca Film Festival and Cirque du Soleil are confident they can pull off the mega-development. Rose noted Related is one of the nation’s top private developers, with $15 billion in existing developments and $9 billion worth of projects in the pipeline.

Rose clarified that the barges for Little League would be moored and stabilized, and that they are permitted on a temporary basis.


‘Neither is acceptable’

Speaking on Monday, Tobi Bergman, president of Pier Park and Playground Association, a group advocating increased youth athletic opportunities, said the community likes the pier as is.

Rooftop fields are too hot compared to the protected courtyard, plus would require 50-foot-tall fences to keep hardballs from flying down onto the Cirque and movie theater crowds, he said.

“It would only take one catastrophic injury before they say, No baseball on the pier,” Bergman said.

Also, windscreens would be needed for rooftop fields, otherwise “every double would turn into a home run,” he said.

More important, in Bergman’s opinion, is the pier’s comfort factor.

“Right now, parents drop off their kids at Pier 40 and they know it’s a safe place,” Bergman said. “It’s completely different if you’re dropping them off at an entertainment complex. It’s no longer a park atmosphere. Tens of thousands of people is not really where you want your kids playing ball.”

While Bergman said Related’s second design is “much better” than its first one, he added that “the content” — Cirque du Soleil, a movieplex, concert hall, four restaurants, retail, banquet hall and more — is still the problem.

“The content is they’ve got a venue for 10,000 people or more,” he said. “You could have more than 10,000 people sitting down on the pier at once.”

Bergman said even “The People’s Pier” plan, which he previously supported, is not good enough, though he thinks it’s closer to acceptable.

“Given what a precious resource Pier 40 is, it’s going to have to be better,” he said.

Lincoln@DowntrownExpress.com

[NYguy]

http://downtownexpress.com/de_213/pier40fields.html

Pier 40 fields would stay open under Cirque plan

http://downtownexpress.com/de_213/pier.gif

A schematic of the Pier 40 Performing Arts Center plan by The Related Companies.

By Lincoln Anderson


Responding to community complaints that its Pier 40 redevelopment plan would close the W. Houston St. pier’s sports fields for up to 18 months, The Related Companies has retooled its proposal so that the fields would remain open throughout the construction.

The developer is now proposing phased construction, building the pier project in successive sections, so that about half the pier’s footprint would always be open for use as sports fields.

Related’s plan calls for a pedestrian walkway extending down the middle of the pier at W. Houston St., creating both a view and retail corridor. Under the phased development, the pier’s existing two-story shed south of Houston St. would be razed and the pier deck covered with artificial sports turf, creating 4.5 acres of interim sports fields. The interim field space would be equal in size to the pier’s existing sports fields, located in its protected courtyard and on the roof’s southeast corner.

Meanwhile, Related would develop the pier’s north half, where the existing pier shed would be incorporated into the project. New fields would be added on top of the structure on the pier’s north side; once these fields were ready, the players would then move to this area, and the development of the pier’s southern side would start.

Related says the fields they would build would be better than the pier’s current fields, in that the turf will be installed over a layer of soft sand, as opposed to rubber.

Related recently hired Jay Kriegel, former executive director of NYC2012 — the organization that tried to lure the Olympics to New York City, to work on the project. Dep. Mayor Daniel Doctoroff, a Hudson River Park Trust board member, led the city’s Olympic bid effort, but Kriegel dismissed the importance of his previous relationship during a recent interview with Downtown Express and The Villager.

Regarding the pier, Kriegel said uninterrupted use of the fields is now “sacrosanct” as far as the developer is concerned.

“That issue is such a rally cry for the community. We heard that loud and clear — uninterrupted play,” Kriegel said.

Related is pitching a $626 million plan to outfit the 14-acre pier with a Cirque du Soleil theater, multiplex of small movie theaters showing independent films, music hall, banquet space, four restaurants and more. Meeting the requirement of the Hudson River Park Trust, the park’s operator, the developer must keep at least as much open sports field space as currently exists on the pier. Related would exceed the sports fields requirement by 40 percent by adding additional field space.

At a May 3 public hearing in Greenwich Village on Related’s plan, called Pier 40 Performing Arts Center, and a rival plan, The People’s Pier, more than 1,500 people turned out, most to voice support for keeping the existing fields, and preferably for increasing the pier’s amount of athletic space. At the time, Related was proposing having the young Little Leaguers and Downtown United Soccer Club members use barges to play on during the interim of the construction.

As Tom Ellett, Greenwich Village Little League president, put it then: “We say no to interim fields! We say no to removing our fields! We say no to rooftop fields! We say no to baseball on barges!”

Although their plan now features uninterrupted use of the sports fields, the amount of traffic-drawing commercial activity on the pier — another major community concern — would be the same. The developer estimates the pier would draw 2.7 million visitors annually and, on average, 7,400 per day.

Asked about the project’s impact on the surrounding community and the Hudson River Park, Kriegel said, “This area is not really one of the hot spots for traffic.” Pier 40 is located a few blocks away from Canal St. and the Holland Tunnel. The block of Houston St. between West and Washington Sts. spanned by the St. John’s Building is a designated pollution “hot spot.”

As for the issue of putting ball fields on the roof, Anthony Fioravanti, a Related vice president, said they are doing wind studies and believe that the Hudson River’s prevailing winds are from the north. They are considering using the existing 40-foot gantry structure on the pier’s north rooftop — which would be preserved under their plan — to attach wind netting.

Related would invest $35 million to upgrade the pier’s infrastructure. They would install new support piles, using a special truck that would drill a hole in the pier deck and then screw — not pound — a pile into the river bottom.

Local reaction to Related’s new phased construction plan, however, was not particularly positive.

“I think that was one point,” Tobi Bergman, director of P3, the local youth sports advocacy group, said of keeping the fields open during construction. “It doesn’t focus on the core issue. For us, this is a park. Is this going to be a park? Or is this going to be a tourist center where children also get to play ball?”

Echoed Assemblymember Deborah Glick, “The problem with the proposal is not whether they do phased development. The problem is the use of the waterfront and dramatic overdevelopment.”

Downtown Express will give an update on The People’s Pier plan — the other development project being considered for Pier 40 — in an upcoming issue.

[NYguy]

http://www.therealdeal.net/issues/JULY_2007/1183152608.php

Take me to the river: Pier overhauls throughout the city
About 20 projects to develop piers for commercial, recreational use

http://www.therealdeal.net//issues/JULY_2007/images/1183152608.jpg

Two renderings of the Related Companies' vision for Pier 40 on Houston Street.


By John Celock

Developers hope to duplicate the success of riverfront projects like Chelsea Piers at numerous pier sites around the city.

At least 20 projects to develop neglected and underused reminders of the city's days as a shipping hub are now under way or in the planning stages. The biggest projects are in Manhattan and Brooklyn, though Bronx and Staten Island wharves are also being eyed.

Most of the Brooklyn pier projects focus on commercial use, with the exception of Brooklyn Bridge Park, which adds recreational space along the Downtown Brooklyn waterfront and will be financially supported by residential buildings on the site. In Manhattan, over a dozen piers, mainly on the West Side, are being redeveloped for transportation and recreational uses.

Observers see the increased activity as a natural outgrowth of the development policies stressed by the Bloomberg administration, which made opening up the waterfront a priority.

Francis Greenburger, founder of Time Equities, said he is not surprised to see interest in developing the piers. The success of Chelsea Piers as a pricey recreational area encouraged more developers to look toward working with the city on using vacant piers, he said.

Created in 1996, Chelsea Piers turned a 30-acre, four-pier site, previously used as a Sanitation Department garage, Traffic Violations Bureau impound lot and movie studio, into a recreational Xanadu offering golf, hockey, swimming, rock climbing and bowling. One pier later became part of the Hudson River Park, a 550-acre waterfront park.

Michael Braito, senior vice president of Chelsea Piers, said the complex is completely leased and sees about 4 million visitors a year. He declined to comment on the privately held operating company's profitability.

Greenburger said that while Chelsea Piers has had success, many developers have shied away from pier development projects.

"I think it is a special undertaking not many developers consider themselves experts in," he said.


[West Side story

Most West Side Manhattan piers can be used only for recreational uses under state legislation that created the Hudson River Park. The park's borders encompass 34 piers from Battery Park to 59th Street, but only 13 piers are used as public space. The rest are working space, used as ferry docks and municipal facilities such as an impound yard or cruise ship terminal space, and are not part of the park.

Historically, Manhattan's West Side was the center of the city's shipping and cruise line industry. Many of the piers along the West Side were condemned by the state in the 1970s during the failed attempt to construct a new highway along the West Side, and have since been used by the city or left to fall into serious disrepair.

Janel Patterson, a spokeswoman for the city's Economic Development Corporation, said that while pier development is a city priority, no citywide master plan for it exists. Rather, she said, the piers are evaluated individually along with their surrounding neighborhoods to develop plans for each site.

"There are different reasons for different piers," Patterson said. "There is not one blanket answer."


Jobs at the Brooklyn waterfront

Earlier this year, the development corporation announced an agreement with the Axis Group to build an auto shipping and cargo facility at the South Brooklyn Marine Terminal in Sunset Park. The project aims to create several hundred jobs in the neighborhood and redevelop 14 acres of open space. Axis plans to use the space for new imported cars entering the country for wholesale distribution. In addition, the company plans on recruiting niche businesses for the site to help create jobs.

Axis is leasing the site from the city for 15 years with a five-year renewal option. The EDC has said the lease will bring the city $32 million in revenue. Axis has committed to hiring all employees from the Sunset Park and Red Hook communities.

A Bloomberg initiative, known as PlaNYC 2030, places an emphasis on open space and alternative transportation methods. Increased access to the waterfront has been a Bloomberg priority for several years and gained more traction with this plan, which was announced in April. One such example is taking place on the West Harlem waterfront.

As part of the project, which began in 2005, the pier at the end of 125th Street will be connected with Riverside Park. A new pier will be built for ferries to New Jersey. The project is near the proposed new campus of Columbia University in Manhattanville, which will extend the swath of classrooms and academic buildings from the existing Morningside Heights campus. The Columbia plan is considered a catalyst for new developments around 125th Street.


Related takes on Pier 40

Although it is better known for its residential projects, the Related Companies is one of two bidders competing to refurbish Pier 40, on Houston Street, on land controlled by the Hudson River Park Trust. Related has touted its plan as an entertainment complex similar to Chelsea Piers, incurring the wrath of neighborhood activists opposed to the plan.

According to a recent report, the price tag to fix Pier 40, a dilapidated ship terminal, now stands at $21 million. The facility will have to generate at least $7 million in annual income to help pay for maintenance of the park, Crain's reported.

Related's plans for the 14-acre site call for a $626 million complex that would create a permanent home for the Tribeca Film Festival, a theater for Cirque du Soleil and retain existing athletic fields for the community.

The other bid seems to have less of a chance of succeeding. Urban Dove, a nonprofit organization working with at-risk youth, and the Camp Group, a summer camp operator, would create what they call the People's Pier -- a $145 million project that would create additional park space, sports fields and a high school.

Area residents and activists have organized to fight Related's plan, which they call "Vegas on the Hudson" and say it will not serve neighborhood interests. A spokeswoman for Related declined to comment on the project, citing the controversy.

While the city's requirements for Pier 40 development proposals originally said projects need to generate at least $5 million to cover 40 percent of the park's maintenance costs, that figure has already grown. After the park is built, its annual maintenance cost will be between $16.8 million and $18.9 million.

In another threat to the plan, the Hudson River Park Trust is short on cash needed complete construction of the 550-acre Hudson River Park, leaving the fate of development at Pier 40 in jeopardy. The city and state gave the trust just $10 million this year, its smallest award ever.

The cash crunch may also impact two additional pier projects at Piers 25 and 26 in Tribeca, near North Moore Street. The trust is seeking developers for projects to replace older piers torn down two years ago.

At the time, Gov. George Pataki announced plans to rebuild a boathouse and create a miniature golf course on the site, but it remains unused today. There are no piers, just abandoned wood pilings poking out of the Hudson.

Plans outlined last month call for Pier 25 to have fields and gardens, and for Pier 26 to house kayak docks and a river research center. In addition, Pier A, at the southern end of Manhattan, is likely to be redeveloped for recreational needs. (See other story on page 72 and this page.)

Also in Manhattan, the city is looking to develop several new piers on the East River as recreational space, with the goal of connecting the East River and Hudson River parks via Fulton Street and other East River parks, such as the Vietnam Veterans Memorial adjacent to 55 Water Street.

This includes Pier 17, site of the South Street Seaport, a mall now slated for demolition and redevelopment. Plans for Pier 17 call for a combination of retail, residential and open space development. Published reports said the developer, General Growth Properties, is considering a tall, iconic building on the site, along with a ferry landing.

In Brooklyn, Brooklyn Bridge Park is being built on several piers along the East River. In an unusual public and private partnership, the park will be sustained by private residential development on the site. Later this year, RAL Companies will complete One Brooklyn Bridge Park, a 449-unit condominium building, the largest industrial-to-residential conversion in Brooklyn's history.

As The Real Deal reported earlier, RAL agreed to pay a share of the park's maintenance costs, starting at $1.25 million a year, which could be followed by cost hikes and additional lump-sum payments if the development hits revenue targets. When gross sales exceed $500 million, the contribution begins at $3 million. That deal is being criticized by some who say officials gave RAL a sweetheart deal on public land. A lawsuit brought by civic activists was dismissed last fall.

A portion of the park has already been completed. Eventually, the 85-acre park will have hills, open plazas, lawns, wetlands, meadows, tidal pools, dunes, marshes, a coastal forest, an aviary island, and 40 acres of playgrounds.

Brooklyn and Manhattan are not the only boroughs to see more pier development. Several projects are pending in the Bronx. Pier 1 in Staten Island, alongside the ferry terminal, will be renovated soon. The 895-foot pier, which currently contains a ball field, the borough's 9/11 memorial and fishing areas, will be designed for increased recreational uses, and a developer has been selected for the project.


Learn from New Jersey

Greenburger believes the city needs to move away from designating outer borough piers for industrial uses and offer more riverfront recreational space. He said that will help spur residential development along the Queens waterfront. Greenburger encouraged city officials to gaze over the Hudson River to New Jersey for inspiration.

"While New York debated, Jersey City acted," Greenburger said of the Garden State's second-largest city, which has seen a residential and commercial building boom on its waterfront over the last decade. Hoboken, just to the north of Jersey City, has partnered with Toll Brothers to re-create several new piers as parks. "If you go to Jersey City, you see an extraordinary amount of waterfront development done well. If you go to Queens, you see a lot of development not done well."

[dallasbrink]

so whats the decision?

[NYguy]

http://www.nypost.com/seven/03282008/news/regionalnews/pier_40_plan_deep_sixed_103863.htm

PIER 40 PLAN DEEP-SIXED

By TOM TOPOUSIS
March 28, 2008

Hudson River Park officials yesterday shelved a controversial plan to build a $625 million performing-arts complex - including a home for Cirque du Soleil - on Manhattan's decaying Pier 40.

The center, proposed by The Related Companies, was one of two bids to redevelop the pier for public-recreation and commercial uses that would rehabilitate the 14-acre structure and generate cash for the park.

Diana Taylor, who chairs the Hudson River Park Trust, told the park's board that growing problems with cracking concrete inside the pier structure had already forced two tenants to relocate and may soon restrict some of the commercial parking.

Related's plan, while opposed by community groups that use Pier 40 for its soccer and baseball fields, was the most financially viable, but the proposal required a 49-year lease, and state law establishing the park permits leases only as long as 30 years.

Taylor said a second bidder, the Camp Group, wants to use the pier for a day camp and recreational facility for children.

[Dale]

Related can't get anything done.

[NYguy]

Related can't get anything done.

They've finally gotten "Lake Related" under constructon on 42nd...:tup:

[NYguy]

http://chelseanow.com/cn_93/withcityschools.html

With city schools, Pier 40 plan may make the grade

By Lincoln Anderson
July 4 - 10, 2008


Giving a major boost to a plan to keep Pier 40 afloat as a community-friendly, low-impact part of Hudson River Park, the New York City School Construction Authority wants to build up to three high schools on the sprawling W. Houston St. pier.

On June 2, Sharon Greenberger, S.C.A. president and C.E.O., wrote to Noreen Doyle, Hudson River Park Trust vice president, “to confirm the S.C.A.’s interest in the potential development of a new public high school facility on Pier 40.”

“Pier 40’s location, size and unique location within the Hudson River Park make it a strong candidate for new public school development, and one that we would like to explore with the Hudson River Park Trust in further detail,” Greenberger wrote.

The news was announced three weeks ago by Chris McGinnis — a member of the Pier 40 Partnership and the coordinator of the Greenwich Village Little League’s Majors A Division — at the league’s end-of-season awards, held on Pier 40.

McGinnis said the Partnership didn’t go public with the announcement until it received clearance from S.C.A.

“Based on preliminary assessment of the existing conditions and opportunities at Pier 40,” Greenberger wrote Doyle, “we believe that an approximately 1,650-seat high school facility, containing approximately 210,000 gross square feet, and an open recreational space could be developed on the north side of the pier. …[A] high school facility could be accommodated in portions of the main and second levels of the existing structure (approximately 6,000 and 80,000 square feet, respectively), and construction of two new additional floors with a footprint of approximately 75,000 square feet above. This would also allow for the provision of open-air recreation space on the second level, adjoining the proposed new construction. …”

Included along with S.C.A.’s formal expression-of-interest letter were diagrams of how the planned school facilities would fit into three floors on the pier’s northern side; different-colored areas depict classrooms, a library, a cafeteria, gym space, science labs and so on.

Greenberger, in her letter, states S.C.A. would be willing to take less than 210,000 square feet on the pier and “explore alternative configurations.” Yet, she said, S.C.A. requires a minimum of 150,000 square feet “in order to meet the needs of two small high school organizations.”

Although Greenberger’s letter doesn’t say anything about developing three schools on the pier, McGinnis said the Partnership’s understanding is that the number would be three. More to the point, the Partnership would like one of these three to be a middle school — which would serve students graduating from P.S. 3 and P.S. 41 — since the Village area has a pressing need for a new middle school, he said.

Based on the number of seats stated in the letter, each high school would have 550 students, according to McGinnis.

For three months, the Pier 40 Partnership — an ad-hoc group of local parents with children in the youth sports leagues using Pier 40’s fields — has been working with Urban Dove/Camp Group to produce a new redevelopment plan for Pier 40. The Trust gave them a deadline of the end of this month. The combined team hopes the Trust’s directors will then pick their proposal at the end of next month at the Trust’s scheduled board meeting.

Both Urban Dove/Camp Group and the Partnership originally had called for school space in their separate proposals for Pier 40. Bob Kerrey, The New School’s president, earlier had expressed strong interest in the education space in the Partnership’s plan.

As well as S.C.A., the Partnership had also been talking to New Visions, a group with the power to create new charter schools.

Richard Dattner, architect for Urban Dove/Camp Group, is now checking to make sure S.C.A.’s plan to add a structure atop Pier 40 works within the park’s guidelines.

The fact that S.C.A. is interested in space on the 15-acre pier is nothing short of a home run for the Little League-loving Partnership members. The group’s goal always has been to preserve the pier’s ball fields for their kids, while keeping The Related Companies from mega-developing the pier with a Cirque du Soleil/Tribeca Film Festival complex. The Trust disqualified Related’s application in March after Related couldn’t make its financials work within the Hudson River Park Act’s 30-year lease restriction for the pier.

When he heard the news of S.C.A.’s interest, McGinnis said, “I was doing the wave — and so was the rest of the Pier 40 Partnership. We were very happy. It’s huge.”

Many of the Partnership’s leading members are financial investors and businesspersons, so they understand the significance of having a Bloomberg administration agency potentially onboard.

“The S.C.A. is part of the city,” McGinnis said. “Its bond rating is double ‘A’. The city is known to pay its bills. The S.C.A. is like having someone with a Good Housekeeping Seal of approval. And the fact that they want this much square footage. …”

The Partnership and Urban Dove/Camp Group have been meeting three times a week since March 27. McGinnis assured that Urban Dove/CampGroup is heading the combined redevelopment proposal.

“They have the lead and we’re partnering with them,” he said. “It was their proposal, and we’re just trying to factor in.”

Urban Dove/CampGroup responded to the request for proposals, or R.F.P., for Pier 40 that the Trust issued a year and a half ago.

The Partnership members recently signed the confidentiality agreement required of the R.F.P. respondents. As a result, McGinnis said he couldn’t reveal much about the proposal that will be presented to the Trust at the end of this month. (On the other hand, McGinnis said the Partnership could make public S.C.A.’s expression-of-interest letter since S.C.A. gave the Partnership clearance.)

On July 2, the Pier 40 Working Group received the first public presentation of the new plan. A public hearing also has been set for Wed., July 16.

McGinnis said the Pier 40 proposal will include 80,000 square feet on the pier for the Trust’s administrative offices, vehicles and the like, plus 600,000 square feet for parking. The idea is to use stackers to minimize the space needed for parking.

“Operation of the pier’s existing ball fields will basically be the same as now,” he said, “but some details are being worked out.”

The Partnership’s original plan included space for a “visual arts market,” offering low-rent, artists’ studios. Asked if that was still part of the plan, McGinnis indicated it wasn’t, saying only, “They [Urban Dove/Camp Group] are the lead.”

He did say, however, that one of the Partnership’s main ideas — a Pier 40 conservancy that would raise millions of dollars to repair the pier — was still part of the concept.

“That kind of merged in,” he said of the conservancy scheme. “Details of that one are being worked out now.”

The crumbling steel-and-concrete former shipping pier needs an estimated $120 million in repairs to its roof and its support pilings — which the designated development team would be required to fund, as well as paying for the pier’s ongoing maintenance over the course of a lease of at least 30 years.

Jai Nanda, founder and director of Urban Dove — a nonprofit organization helping New York City public school students to excel through sports activities and education — confirmed that the arts market is out.

“The arts market was never part of our plan,” he stated. “So, I think what we’re going to submit to the Trust is going to closely resemble our original plan.”

Urban Dove/Camp Group’s initial plan included about 60,000 square feet for boutique-size retail stores, such as for sporting goods, in keeping with Pier 40’s athletic-use theme.

“The retail space being turned into an arts market — we experimented with that and it didn’t seem to be a viable option,” Nanda said. A pricey summer day camp, to be run by CampGroup, is also part of the proposal.

He confirmed that a Pier 40 conservancy is a component of their idea.

As for S.C.A.’s interest in the pier, Nanda said he was “very excited.”

Yet, while acknowledging that the Trust wants an R.F.P respondent to lead the proposal, he downplayed any hierarchy.

“As far as being the lead, we consider ourselves partners,” Nanda said, “and what we submit will reflect that.

“We’re feeling very good about it,” he said of the team effort with the Partnership. “We’ve made a lot of progress.”

The Department of Education and Trust both said nothing is set regarding schools on Pier 40 and that the R.F.P. process is still ongoing.

“We’re still doing evaluation of the R.F.P.’s,” said Chris Martin, the Trust’s spokesperson. “The fact that they’ve approved it will go into consideration,” he said of S.C.A.’s stated interest in the pier. Everything will be examined when the final plan is submitted at this month’s end, he said.

Margie Feinberg, a D.O.E. spokesperson, said the department must defer to the Trust on building schools on Pier 40.

“There is a letter of intent,” she said. “It’s a park. We cannot build in a park — period. Only the Hudson River Park can decide what can be built there. We said we’d like to sit down and discuss it; it’s a vacant site.”

Whereas high schools are not zoned, middle schools are, Feinberg said, meaning, if there was a middle school on Pier 40, local kids would be given preference.

Brad Hoylman, Community Board 2 chairperson, said, “By locating school space on the pier, we kill two birds with one stone. One, Pier 40 will be maximized for public — not commercial — uses. And, two, much-needed classroom space is created in our neighborhood, giving kids a better classroom experience, and parents more options.”

Another site parents and education advocates are eyeing for a middle school is the state-owned building at 75 Morton St., currently housing state agencies, but which the state is hoping to sell.

Lisa Willner, a spokesperson for the Empire State Development Corporation, said she could not answer questions about whether the building would be sold without restrictions to a private developer or sold specifically for use as a school.

“The invitation to bid [an R.F.P.] on 75 Morton St. has not yet been released,” Willner said. “Until the invitation to bid has been finalized, we cannot answer your questions.”

D.O.E.’s Feinberg said, “Any vacant space is always attractive,” but said she couldn’t comment more about 75 Morton St., and noted the state plans to issue an R.F.P. for it.

As for The New School and arts market, Arthur Schwartz, Pier 40 Working Group chairperson, said they’re both now part of a proposal by developer Douglas Durst for Pier 57, at W. 16th St. Schwartz said S.C.A. wants so much space on Pier 40, there’s no room left there for The New School, while both an arts market with galleries and The New School’s Parsons arts school are natural fits at Pier 57, near the Chelsea arts scene.

[lewisblack]

The Performing arts pier looks so good I think this should be built but it has been going on for ages. Btw where did you get that pic of the pap that's so good.

[NYguy]

We're at it again...
http://www.downtownexpress.com/de_336/wouldcondos.html

Would condos or London Eye float on Pier 40?

http://www.downtownexpress.com/de_336/eyeonlondon.jpg
A Ferris wheel like the London Eye is reportedly being talked about for Pier 40, although the rumor has been denied by some.

By Lincoln Anderson
October 2 - 8, 2009


A new ad hoc committee on Pier 40 has been formed at the Hudson River Park Trust to come up with ideas to renovate and redevelop the critical but crumbling 14-acre pier.

Two prior request-for-proposals, or R.F.P., processes that sought developers to fix up and program the Lower West Side pier have sunk like stones.

The most pressing concern about the two-story Pier 40, at W. Houston St., is its roof, which needs $20 million in repairs. Also calling for an overhaul are the pier’s rusting support piles.

The 5-mile-long Hudson River Park is supposed to be financially self-supporting, and Pier 40 is a big part of that equation: Parking — currently Pier 40’s main commercial use — brings in about $7.5 million gross ($5.5 million net) in rent for the Trust, or about 40 percent of the park’s annual operating budget. Parking on the pier is staunchly defended by a strong local constituency of car owners.

With improvements, the parking could probably bring in several million dollars more in annual revenue. However, as the pier’s roof deteriorates, sections of the parking are being progressively closed off, not only putting the pier at risk, but reducing the pier’s revenue.

In order for the pier to be renovated, significantly more money is needed, which means bringing in at least one more commercial use — hence the committee’s search.

The ad hoc Pier 40 committee includes four Trust board members — Pam Frederick and Lawrence B. Goldberg, who are appointees of Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer; Paul Ullman, a gubernatorial appointee; and Joe Rose, the city’s former Planning commissioner — as well as Connie Fishman and Noreen Doyle, the Trust’s president and vice president, respectively.

Roughly one day each week, the committee has been meeting with different stakeholders and possible interested development groups. At this point, Ullman and Frederick are the two most active members and the ones doing the outreach and most consistently attending the meetings.

The idea is for the committee to be open to hearing all ideas and not rule out any possibilities — including modifying the Hudson River Park Act, if necessary, to allow certain kinds of uses currently not permitted.

However, that’s not to say the committee is looking to explore ideas that megadevelop the pier: Ullman, for one, got involved with the Trust over his opposition to The Related Companies’ “Las Vegas on the Hudson” plan, which was in the second R.F.P. round and would have featured a Cirque du Soleil and movie theaters for the Tribeca Film Festival. Ullman, who lives in the Village, and Frederick, a Tribeca resident, both have young children that play in local sports leagues that use Pier 40’s playing fields.

Broad Range of ideas

Some ideas that have reportedly been raised, so far, are generally in the nonglamorous, low-impact mold: a warehouse facility for paper products for local restaurants; and a telecom hotel to house Internet data centers and Web servers. The latter, though, was determined to be too heavy for the pier.

At the other end of the spectrum, another group — with past ties to Hudson River Park — is said to have mentioned a plan to bring a giant Ferris wheel to Pier 40, along the lines of the London Eye, London’s top tourist attraction.

However, Ben Korman of C&K Properties, which used to run the parking on Pier 40, denied any involvement in the scheme.

“I really know literally nothing about that idea,” he said. “That has nothing to do with me. … I heard that there is a group that is exploring something along those lines — but I think they’re looking at alternative sites all over the city; I didn’t hear anything about the Hudson waterfront.

“I don’t think this is something that would work at Pier 40,” Korman said of a hypothetical “Lower West Side Eye.” “No matter what, it will be controversial wherever it goes — but it is a success in London and, I think, it is in Paris, too.”

Still another idea that has been floating around is for residential use on Pier 40 — specifically for a small number of very high-end condos or co-ops. For residential use to be allowed on Pier 40, however, the park act would have to be changed.

Interest has dwindled

Particularly before the recession, developers had been expressing interest in Pier 40. Fairway’s owners were said to have been eyeing the pier for a supermarket, though the Trust doesn’t back big-box stores on the pier. Another pitch was for a 200,000-square-foot aquarium, which is small, relatively speaking, compared to Coney Island Aquarium.

Although it was hoped the city would be interested in putting public schools on Pier 40, and there was support for this idea from the Trust, word now has it that the School Construction Authority recently said it had serious reservations about the idea: Having students cross a highway was reportedly an issue, plus because of the real estate dive, spaces on land are now more affordable, making the pier less attractive.

In addition, after the two failed R.F.P.’s, the Trust is now said to be considering crafting its own a master development plan for the pier, and then contracting out the job to different developers or groups.

Open-ended process

Fishman, the Trust’s president, said of the committee’s efforts, “The idea is to cast as wide a net for research as possible — to reach into the corners...a broader section of conversation. They’re trying to be open-minded.”

Fishman said she didn’t feel the committee had the objective of trying to change the park’s legislation without first having a clear idea of what should be done at the pier.

In the past, she said, discussion about the pier was “geared to the R.F.P. responses,” adding that, while those two R.F.P. processes didn’t pan out, they were educational. “We know a lot of stuff from what happened before,” she said.

As for how long the ad hoc Pier 40 committee will continue its work, Fishman responded that, as of now, the process is open-ended.

“There’s no determined schedule,” she said.

She confirmed there had been ongoing interest in the W. Houston St. pier — from “national to international” groups — but that “it kind of dried up when the economy went on the skids. ... And because the economy is so bad, this is a good time to do research,” she noted.

Asked if the Trust itself will design a master plan for Pier 40’s development, or issue a third R.F.P. for developers, Fishman indicated it’s yet to be determined, replying, “Don’t know enough yet.”

Stymied on stimulus

Doyle, the Trust’s V.P., gave Downtown Express an update on the state-city park authority’s efforts to get federal stimulus funds for Pier 40. She said staff members for Council Speaker Christine Quinn helped identify a grant application they thought might possibly work — under transportation-related uses. In the end, though, the Trust didn’t apply for the grant, given that the application would have been a major effort to do, and since it was a stretch to shoehorn Pier 40 into the transportation category.

“We would have been going up against port authorities, like Los Angeles and Boston,” Doyle noted.

The Trust made some earlier applications for stimulus funds, but these haven’t netted anything yet, Doyle said, adding that competition for these monies is fierce.

“We’re now looking at ‘green’ ideas,” she said of Pier 40. “If it’s ‘green,’ maybe that will make it attractive to get a grant.”

Doyle agreed with Fishman that now is a time to get ideas on Pier 40.

“With economic disarray — it’s a time for creative thinking,” she said. Borrowing from Eastern wisdom, she noted, “The Chinese symbol for ‘opportunity’ is ‘chaos.’”

1990 report recalled

Arthur Schwartz, head of the Hudson River Park Advisory Council and also of the recently reconstituted Pier 40 Working Group, said residential use on Pier 40 would never fly.

“That will create huge opposition,” he told Downtown Express. “That was a proposal for Pier 40 back in the late 1980s or early ’90s,” he said, recalling there was a report on it.

Currently the president of New York Water Taxi, Tom Fox was a member of the West Side Waterfront Panel, which created that 1990 report. He still has a copy of it, kept among what he called his “70 boxes” of Hudson River Park-related material in his office out in Red Hook, Brooklyn.

Called “A Vision for the Hudson River Waterfront Park,” the document essentially laid out the “bare bones” of what would one day become the Hudson River Park, Fox recalled.

Indeed, the part of the report on the park’s Greenwich Village section did offer a proposal for housing at Pier 40 — though Fox personally did not support that concept, preferring recreational use. The so-called “highest density option” called for 1,500 residential units on the pier, with the structure rising 85 feet high in some areas.

“I don’t think it makes any sense at all,” Fox said of having people living on the pier, calling it “privatizing of the river.”

“People don’t want people playing in their front yard,” he explained. “If you have an office building, hotel or residential, you don’t want people playing on your front lawn. The waterfront is precious and should be kept for the public.”

Recreation not profitable

On the other hand, Fox said of Pier 40’s current focus on sports uses, “The problem with recreation is it’s not a big moneymaker.”

Of Pier 40’s other main use, he added, “You can’t underestimate the demand for parking.”

Fox — who from 1992-’95 was president of the Hudson River Park Conservancy, the Trust’s predecessor — and the Friends of Hudson River Park, of which Fox is a board member, are still pushing their plan for a business improvement district-like body to raise funds for the park. The BID would assess a small annual tax on property owners bordering the park between Chambers and W. 59th Sts.

Despite the rough reception the Friends of the High Line received for its proposed High Line Improvement District, which led to that park group shelving the idea, Fox is still bullish on a Hudson River Park funding district.

“It’s moving along,” Fox said. “We’re meeting with the property owners, elected officials. Slow and steady wins the race.”

Tobi Bergman, president of P3, a nonprofit group based on Pier 40 that runs baseball clinics and promotes sports uses of the waterfront, said he agrees with the idea of looking into the viability of any and all uses for Pier 40. The focus right now should be to brainstorm and investigate all options, he said, and to avoid knee-jerk condemnations of possible concepts before all their pros and cons have been fully assessed.

‘Avoid entertainment’

Bergman, for one, said residential might be a use that could work, since it brings in money for the pier but with a relatively low impact in terms of people going to and from the pier, when compared with entertainment uses, such as a London Eye-type Ferris wheel, movie theaters or restaurants, for example. And some people might not mind having ball fields on one side of their homes, if they have “spectacular views” of the river on the other side, he added.

“What I think would create opposition no matter what is high-intensity use that brings a lot of people crossing the bike path,” Bergman said. “I think an entertainment- and a tourism-based approach to the pier is problematic.”

Bergman said he didn’t see why residential use of part of the pier is any more a privatization of the space than some of the commercial uses currently leasing space on the pier, such as a sign-making company on its second floor.

Also, to address Pier 40’s immediate problem — its roof — Bergman recommended that the Trust stop building out new sections of the park, and instead redirect those funds to fixing the pier’s roof.

“They have to drop the idea that they can’t put money into Pier 40,” Bergman said of the Trust. “The pier is deteriorating, which is also reducing the revenue the pier is providing for the park. That’s the first priority — fix that roof.”

‘EXPAND THE GOOD STUFF’

Under the park act, space equivalent to 50 percent of Pier 40’s footprint must be open, public-use space — which can include active recreation, like sports — while the rest of the pier can be developed commercially. Bergman and local parents would like to see the pier’s sports uses actually increase, if feasible.

“The challenge is how is it possible to keep the good stuff — and expand the good stuff?” he said. “That’s not easy.”

A London Eye, on the other hand, would change the neighborhood, Bergman said, bringing with it things local families and youth sports leagues that use the pier don’t want, like “boat rides, restaurants and clubs,” he noted.

One thing is for sure: Whatever does happen at Pier 40, it won’t be done overnight. With all the reviews, vetting and approvals that are needed, after a plan is decided on, it could take a few years to be put into effect.

[J. Will]

Major League Soccer wants to play on Pier 40

The league will present a plan Thursday to a task force of the Hudson River Park Trust which controls the pier. The pitch comes as the trust struggles to line up new revenues.





http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article/20120404/REAL_ESTATE/120409960/1033

[NYguy]

There have been so many different proposals and ideas for this pier, I'm already sick of talking about it. Now Durst wants to "save" it. If only they could save the spire of the Freedom Tower...


http://www.nypost.com/p/news/business/realestate/commercial/pier_durst_to_the_rescue_SlBxvE9ad5ZEWJNKBHtdiN

Pier 40: Durst to the rescue


http://www.nypost.com/rw/nypost/2012/08/28/business/web_photos/cuozzo--300x300.jpg


By Steve Cuozzo
August 28, 2012



Douglas Durst wants to save crumbling Pier 40 with a half-million square feet of new, rent-producing “high-tech” facilities, office space and stores. The 15-acre relic at the foot of Houston Street, where Holland America liners once set sail across the Atlantic, now threatens to sink the finances of the Hudson River Park of which it’s part. Under state law, the pier is supposed to generate revenue to help pay for upkeep of the five-mile waterfront park. But Madelyn Wils, CEO of the Hudson River Park Trust — the city-state partnership that operates it — says the pier is now making only $5 million a year while costing $7 million to maintain.

The Post’s Annie Karni yesterday reported that Durst wants to create more revenue-producing space by shrinking the garage, and he opposes an idea that’s been floated to build apartments and a hotel on the pier. Durst — chairman of nonprofit Friends of Hudson River Park, the Trust’s fundraising partner — shared more specifics with Realty Check. He and consultant Ben Korman, a Friends board member who once managed the pier, want to “consolidate” the garage into a “footprint” two-thirds smaller. It would have the same number of parking spaces, currently 1,700, by converting it from a self-parking facility to one with attendants who would move cars into a three-level “stack,” which would fit into the existing ground floor with 20-foot ceilings.

Freeing up the second floor and roof would make room for 500,000 square feet of commercial space, Durst said. But he wouldn’t build or operate it himself; rather, the Trust would solicit proposals from other developers.

[NYguy]

http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article/20130204/REAL_ESTATE/130209981

Key politicians shoot down new Pier 40 plan
Proposal to solve the pier's long-running financial problems by building a residential tower
get a cool response from two state senators whose districts include portions of the Hudson River Park.

By Daniel Geiger
February 4, 2013


A proposal floated last week to solve Pier 40's long-running financial problems by allowing a residential tower to be built on a portion of the space has met with a cold response from two legislators whose approval would be necessary to implement the plan.

"I have a longstanding concern about housing on parkland," said New York state Senator Daniel Squadron, whose district includes the West Side pier at the foot of West Houston Street. "Over time those who live there have a different relationship with the park than everyone else does."

State Senator Brad Hoylman, whose West Side district includes another stretch of the Hudson River Park, expressed a similar view.

"I have serious reservations about residential development in any part of the park," he said.

The reluctance among key legislators to endorse the residential plan, which was proposed by an organization of sports teams that play on athletic fields at Pier 40, would appear to sink what is only the latest in a series of attempts in recent years to find some way for the park to generate desperately-needed revenue.

Last week's plan imagined building a 600-unit residential tower on the shoreline in front of the pier. The proposal was released Wednesday by a group called the Pier 40 Champions, a 500-member organization that represents youth sports leagues that play football, baseball and soccer and other spots on the three acres of athletic fields at the pier. The idea, which cost $25,000 to roughly design with WXY Architecture, was meant to inspire a third request for proposal process in a decade to solicit developers to pitch their best version of the plan and build it.

[NYguy]

This saga is nearing an end...



http://therealdeal.com/blog/2013/04/09/young-woos-pier-57-proposal-nears-city-approval/

Young Woo’s Pier 57 proposal nears city approval


http://therealdeal.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/pier-57-final.jpg


April 09, 2013
By Candace Taylor



The City Council today is expected to approve Young Woo & Associates’ redevelopment proposal for Pier57, located at 14th Street and the Hudson River.

The council is considering a special zoning permit to allow construction of a 170,000 square-foot marketplace fashioned from repurposed shipping containers on the 900-foot Hudson River pier, which in the past has been used as an ocean liner dock, a bus depot and even a holding pen for protesters arrested during the 2004 Republican National Convention.

The market would house new restaurants and shops and offer “work/sell” spaces for local start-ups in industries such as media, art, fashion and food. The Tribeca Film Festival will establish a permanent outdoor venue on the roof of the structure. The plan also calls for education and community uses such as cooking schools, art galleries, music recording studios, and photography labs.




Still, some people have other ideas...

http://archpaper.com/news/articles.asp?id=6588

http://archpaper.com/uploads/image/nyu_alt_sorkin_01.jpg



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http://archpaper.com/uploads/nyu_alt_sorkin_02.jpg

[NYguy]

http://www.sportsgrid.com/soccer/new-york-city-fc-leaked-stadium-renderings-show-maybe-the-coolest-venue-one-earth/#0

Leaked New York City FC Stadium Renderings Show What Will Be The Coolest Venue On Earth


http://static03.mediaite.com/sportsgrid/uploads/gallery/new-york-city-fc-stadium/screen-shot-2013-08-04-at-2-41-49-pm.png


by Jake O'Donnell
August 4th, 2013


When news broke that there was going to be another MLS team coming to New York, everybody began speculating where the stadium was going to go. In New York, these kinds of delusions of grandeur never pan out, because real estate is so absurdly expensive, teams can’t afford to build in the cool places. So they end up in Flushing, Queens, The Bronx, or New Jersey. No joke: Even the Knicks are getting kicked out of MSG. But we still can dream. Check out these renderings that were just leaked on Reddit.




http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1727952-images-of-new-york-city-fc-pier-40-stadium-are-too-good-to-be-true

Images of New York City FC Pier 40 Stadium Are Too Good to Be True


By Gabe Zaldivar
August 5, 2013


Fans of soccer stadiums or just beautiful locales will absolutely love leaked renderings of the Pier 40 stadium supposedly made for the future New York City FC. Unfortunately, it seems the brilliant images of a possible stadium will have to remain fictional for the time being.

Jake O'Donnell of Sports Grid spotted the following leaked renderings originally posted over at Reddit. Take just a moment and imagine the pure magnificence that would come with watching a fixture on Pier 40.

Back in May, Major League Soccer commissioner Don Garber announced New York would be getting a new team—a franchise born from the partnership between powerhouses Manchester City and MLB's New York Yankees. At the time, Garber stated the club would play in a temporary locale for its inaugural 2015 season, leaving fans to guess where a permanent home might present itself.

It seems fairly obvious that any stadium sitting along the pier would be amazing for sports fans living in Manhattan. In fact, you might offer that such fanciful arenas would rest comfortably in the land of "too good to be true."

If you believe some of the things being offered in the Reddit comments section, it is. The following quotes come from Reddit user, RemyDWD, who writes, "I'm a soccer writer in NYC. Been on the beat for just about 2 years," when asked about his knowledge of the situation. RemyDWD is also listed as a moderator on the site.

Here is what the reporter had to offer on these particular images:

Official response from the league spokesperson when I asked for comment:

This rendering was a conceptual design that Major League Soccer produced when considering Pier 40 as a potential soccer stadium.

As noted by another commenter, there is a great deal of past tense in that comment.

The moderator then breaks down the difficulty presented with building a stadium as wonderful as this right on the pier.

Pier 40 was one of the stadium locations that was discussed when the league started their search for a home for NY2. No formal reason was given as to why it was dropped but I did attend a meeting where the Hudson River Park Trust acknowledged that MLS had been in touch about the location.

Now, these very well could be old and from that exploration, but unless I get a comment back from the league (and I just asked), there's no way of knowing.

What's interesting about Pier 40 is that the HRPT mentioned that they needed $200M of repair work just to get the Pier stable enough to build anything on, let alone the cost of additional work. While when the league was going it alone to get the stadium deal done, that seemed a bridge too far, I can't say NYC FC's ownership is truly lacking in money.

As noted, the new franchise does benefit from having owners who are seemingly flush with cash. Still, it seems this remarkable stadium will have to remain a fairy tale.

Now that you are thoroughly depressed, go ahead and savor the images one last time before demanding MLS go back and reconsider what would be the best stadium in the league.





http://www.pbase.com/nyguy/image/151701231/original.jpg



http://www.pbase.com/nyguy/image/151701232/original.jpg



http://www.pbase.com/nyguy/image/151701233/original.jpg



http://www.pbase.com/nyguy/image/151701234/original.jpg

[antinimby]

LOL. No way the NIMBY's will let you build a stadium there.

[Hypothalamus]

http://cdn.cstatic.net/images/curbed/logo-ny-156x59.png

Once-Neglected Pier 57 Prepares for Its SuperPier Moment (http://ny.curbed.com/archives/2014/01/17/onceneglected_pier_57_prepares_for_its_superpier_moment.php)
Friday, January 17, 2014, by Curbed Staff
All photos by Nathan Kensinger

http://ny.curbed.com/uploads/01_kensinger_pier_57_superpier_DSC_7695_small.jpg
The SuperPier, an enormous market designed by YoungWoo & Associates, is scheduled to open in 2015 inside Chelsea's historic Marine & Aviation building.

....
But that may soon change, as construction is now underway for an enormous market at Pier 57. Designed and developed by YoungWoo & Associates (YWA), the SuperPier hopes to bring thousands of visitors to this colossal industrial relic, much like its nearby neighbor The High Line. "When I first visited the building I was humbled by the scale of the structure," said Zachary Beloff, the director of marketing and leasing for YWA and one of the few people who has explored the entire structure. "I had passed the building for years and always hoped to see the interiors," said Beloff, who is now actively seeking tenants to fill the SuperPier's 270,000 square feet of leasable space. YWA is planning to install a creative mix of businesses here, some housed inside hundreds of shipping containers, some underwater in the caissons, and others outside on roofs and decks. Tenants could range from a rock climbing gym to a beach club to boutique cinemas, a bathhouse, or a live music venue. "We have more retail space than Nolita," said Beloff. "We are curating a neighborhood."
...

The empty halls of the Marine & Aviation building will be filled with 460 shipping containers, housing many of the SuperPier's stores and food stands. This second floor space is slated to become a 19,000-square-foot Asian food market.

"There will be 90,000 square feet of food and restaurants," said Zachary Beloff. "We're targeting something for everyone."
...


http://ny.curbed.com/uploads/02_kensinger_pier_57_superpier_DSC_7028_small.jpg

http://ny.curbed.com/uploads/04_kensinger_pier_57_superpier_DSC_6960_small.jpg

http://ny.curbed.com/uploads/05_kensinger_pier_57_superpier_DSC_7587_small.jpg

http://ny.curbed.com/uploads/06_12_kensinger_pier_57_superpier_DSC_6820_small.jpg

http://ny.curbed.com/uploads/07_kensinger_pier_57_superpier_DSC_7454_small.jpg

http://ny.curbed.com/uploads/11_kensinger_pier_57_superpier_DSC_6696_small.jpg
Several of the old rooms inside Pier 57 will be demolished to make way for SuperPier tenants, including this space. "A lot of the pre-construction work has already begun," said Beloff.

http://ny.curbed.com/uploads/12_kensinger_pier_57_superpier_DSC_6715_small.jpg
Demolition is set to begin on this structure in the next few days. Some of the spaces slated for destruction include offices and meeting rooms.

http://ny.curbed.com/uploads/14__kensinger_pier_57_superpier_DSC_7644_small.jpg
This caisson is 360 feet long by 82 feet wide and nearly 33 feet tall, according to The Villager, and it weighs 27,000 tons. The pier is the city's only one built on "floating concrete boxes."

http://ny.curbed.com/uploads/17_kensinger_pier_57_superpier_DSC_7090_small.jpg

http://ny.curbed.com/uploads/18_kensinger_pier_57_superpier_DSC_7137_small.jpg

http://ny.curbed.com/uploads/20_kensinger_pier_57_superpier_DSC_7322_small.jpg

http://ny.curbed.com/uploads/19_kensinger_pier_57_superpier_DSC_7250_small.jpg

http://ny.curbed.com/uploads/21_kensinger_pier_57_superpier_DSC_7308_small.jpg

[Design-mind]

Love the haunting pictures from the interior. Will they use the old pilings to create the new pier or will they drill new ones?

[chris08876]

Atlas Capital in talks over $100M repair plan for Pier 40

http://s13.therealdeal.com/trd/up/2014/05/pier-40.jpg

Developer Atlas Capital Group, co-owner of the St. John’s Terminal Building, is negotiating with the state and Hudson River Park officials over a deal that would provide $100 million for the redevelopment of the decaying two-story Pier 40 near West Houston Street.

The proposed deal calls for the transfer of unused air rights from the pier to the four-story terminal building at 550 Washington Street in exchange for the funds. Atlas would then tear down the building over the next decade in an effort to construct retail outlets and residential properties.

The talks are “focused on solving a longstanding, well-documented problem at Pier 40 through the development of a mixed-use project at the St. John’s site,” an Atlas spokesperson told the New York Times.

The city and state would have to give final approval on the plan and necessary zoning changes. A New York state law, which was passed last year, permits the trust for Hudson River Park to sell development rights as far as one block east of park boundaries to pay for repairs at Pier 40, as previously reported. Preservationist groups had criticized the apparent lack of information about the potential impact of the resulting development.
==================================
May 16, 2014
http://therealdeal.com/blog/2014/05/16/atlas-capital-in-talks-over-100m-pier-40-repairs-plan/

[chris08876]

Notes map out Atlas’ plans for St. John’s Terminal

http://s11.therealdeal.com/trd/up/2014/11/550washfinal.jpg

The proposed new development at St. John’s Terminal across from Pier 40 will include condos, affordable housing and retail space, according to hand-written notes that came out of a meeting between the developers and the Manhattan Borough President.

According to the notes, which were obtained by DNAinfo through a Freedom of Information Law request, the below-market-rate units in the Atlas Capital Group-developed building will not have river views.

The first phase of the project will include 450,000 square feet of condo space and 100,000 square feet of retail, the notes indicated.

Atlas is planning to pay $100 million to acquire 250,000 square feet of air rights from the neighboring pier. The developer will use that space to build an addition to the St. John’s Terminal building at 550 Washington Street, the website reported. The plan — which hasn’t been presented to the public yet — will still need approval from the state, the city and the borough president’s office.

The developer also proposed to use 110,000 square feet of the project for affordable housing for senior citizens.
======================================
http://therealdeal.com/blog/2014/11/12/revealed-what-atlas-plans-to-do-with-st-johns-terminal/#sthash.LVG8TyNS.dpuf

[chris08876]

http://www.yimbynews.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/W-13-e1415956645325.jpg
Credit: 550 Washington Street concept vision, rendering by Selldorf Architects

[sparkling]

Hudson River Park's Pier 40 needs $104M rehab, report says (http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article/20150330/REAL_ESTATE/150339994/hudson-river-parks-pier-40-needs-104m-rehab-report-says)

JOE ANUTA
MARCH 30, 2015
Repairs to the crumbling Pier 40 at Hudson River Park will cost more than $104 million and take nearly 10 years to carry out, according to estimates in an engineering report completed in March and reviewed by Crain’s.

The report, which was commissioned by the Hudson River Park Trust, a public-benefit corporation that operates and maintains the park, revealed that more than half of the piles that hold up the approximately 14-acre pier are damaged,and that work to shore up more than 1,000 of the most vulnerable supports should begin immediately. The projected cost, which has been expected for months, is slightly more than the $100 million figure that the trust had originally estimated.

To fund the project, the trust is looking to sell air rights above the pier to a development team including Atlas Capital Group, which owns the St. John’s Terminal Building across the street and wants to transform the 1.3 million-square-foot structure that spans several blocks into a massive mixed-use development.That deal,however,is taking longer than the trust had anticipated.

“The timing has been slower than we would like on this,” said Madelyn Wils, president of the trust. The trust is working with the city to create a special zoning district that will allow the air-rights transfer between Pier 40 and the terminal building—though air rights over six more piers in the park are also being eyed for sales. But before that process can advance, the developer’s plans for the project need to be finalized and begin the journey through the rigorous and lengthy public-review process.“It was anticipated that the project would have already been out in the public by this time,” Ms. Wils said.

The city said it is working on creative solutions to address the repairs at Pier 40, while the development team said it is still working with several stakeholders to finalize its
plans, which will likely include a series of buildings and a hotel. A November report in DNAinfo showed that the first phase of the team’s alteration of the St. John’s Terminal would contain 450,000 square feet of condos and 100,000 square feet of retail, along with affordable housing for seniors.

http://www.crainsnewyork.com/apps/pbcsi.dll/storyimage/CN/20150330/REAL_ESTATE/150339994/AR/0/Pier-40.jpg&q=80&MaxW=640&imageversion=widescreen&maxh=360&cci_ts=20150330103023

[sparkling]

http://cdn.cstatic.net/images/curbed/logo-ny-156x59.png

Once-Neglected Pier 57 Prepares for Its SuperPier Moment (http://ny.curbed.com/archives/2014/01/17/onceneglected_pier_57_prepares_for_its_superpier_moment.php)
Friday, January 17, 2014, by Curbed Staff

Google is close to taking over forthcoming office space at Pier 57 (http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article/20150512/REAL_ESTATE/150519959/google-is-close-to-taking-over-upcoming-office-space-at-pier-57)
The Internet giant intends to take 250,000 square feet of office space at the new mixed-use project called SuperPier

Daniel Geiger
May 12, 2015
Google is about to expand its sprawling Manhattan campus to the Hudson River.

The Internet giant has signed a letter of intent to take about 250,000 square feet at Pier 57, which is being redeveloped into retail, office and park space by a partnership between the real estate investment firms RXR Realty and YoungWoo Associates.

Google is planning to take almost all of the roughly 300,000 square feet the project’s owners will create in the giant, hangar-like building that sits atop the pier, which juts into the Hudson River at West 15th Street.

The deal would be the latest expansion by Google, which bought the huge office building at 111 Eighth Ave. several years ago. Since then, it has grown at Eighth Avenue and into neighboring properties, including Chelsea Market, as well as 85 10th Ave.

Pier 57, which RXR and YoungWoo have rechristened as SuperPier, is just west of those buildings.

RXR and YoungWoo are planning to convert the ground floor of Pier 57 into a mall for retailers and its upper floors into state-of-the-art office space. The roof will become public park space that will host film screenings via a partnership with the Tribeca Film Festival.

The pier's basement is enclosed in a watertight concrete foundation, anchored to the bottom of the Hudson. Popular climbing gym Brooklyn Boulders is expected to open there.

[chris08876]

^^^^^^

Rendering of Pier 57:

http://s14.therealdeal.com/trd/up/2015/05/SuperPier.jpg
Credit: http://therealdeal.com/blog/2015/05/12/google-taking-250k-sf-at-rxr-and-youngwoos-pier-57/

[chris08876]

Extra info on Pier 57:
===============

Bourdain Market is coming to Pier 57

The location of Bourdain Market, Anthony Bourdain’s hotly anticipated 100,000-square-foot food stall extravaganza, will be Youngwoo & Associates and RXR Realty’s Pier 57 in the Meatpacking District.

Bourdain is in negotiations to take a space at the former shipping and passenger terminal, which is being rebranded as SuperPier, according to the New York Observer. The entire facility spans about 560,000 square feet, and Bourdain Market will take up the entire retail portion. Bourdain is negotiating directly with the developers.
=============================
http://therealdeal.com/blog/2015/05/13/bourdain-market-is-coming-to-pier-57/#sthash.AZyELO26.dpuf

[sparkling]

Pier 40 to Be Saved Under Plan to Build 1,500 Apartments in West Village

MARC SANTORA
OCT. 20, 2015
After years of debate, disagreement and inaction, New York City officials and developers plan to announce on Wednesday a proposal to save Pier 40, the former cargo terminal in Manhattan that is in danger of collapsing into the Hudson River, by selling off air rights to a developer that plans to build on the other side of the West Side Highway.

The plan, which still needs to go through a public approval process, envisions raising more than $100 million by selling the air rights to allow the development of five buildings between Clarkson and Charlton Streets, on the eastern flank of the highway, that would include hundreds of apartments for low- and middle-income households.

Continue Reading (http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/21/nyregion/pier-40-to-be-saved-under-plan-to-build-1500-apartments-in-west-village.html?em_pos=small&emc=edit_ur_20151021&nl=nytoday&nlid=72510341&ref=headline&_r=1&referer=)

[chris08876]

The lease plan for Pier 57 went through with the tenant being Google.

[antinimby]

Love all these pier rehabilitation and adaptive re-use. Also, hopeful that pier 40 gets ULURP approval. We know the Village is NIMBY central.

[chris08876]

bht_UqOfxkg

[Submariner]

It would be amazing if they extended the Battery City infill to this location.

[sparkling]

RXR Realty to take $225M loan for Pier 57: report (http://therealdeal.com/2016/03/30/rxr-realty-to-take-225m-loan-for-pier-57-report/)
Cash will fund developer’s 480K sf Google-anchored office and retail complex

Ariel Stulberg
March 30, 2016
Scott Rechler’s RXR Realty will soon ink a loan that will cover more than half the projected cost of its redevelopment of Pier 57 on the Hudson River.

The firm is in talks to take $225 million in financing from PNR Bank to fund its redevelopment of the pier, and construction of its planned 480,000-square-foot office and retail complex, the Commercial Observer reported, citing sources familiar with the negotiations.

RXR, along with Youngwoo & Associates, signed a 97-year ground lease for the site with the Hudson River Park Trust last year. The project is slated to cost $350 million in total.

The project will be anchored by tech behemoth Google, which signed a 15-year lease to take 250,000 square feet at the complex, which totals 560,000 square feet.

Anthony Bourdain, the chef and TV star, signed a letter of intent last September to open the 155,000-square-foot Bourdain Market at the pier, a 100-stall plaza of diverse restaurants.

[mrnyc]

^ good catch thanks -- i wondered what was going on with pier 57 aka the superpier. so it looks like now they have the rehab $ and its actually going to happen.

as if there was any doubt once google came aboard.

[chris08876]

Bourdain Market Website Pushes Expected Opening Date Back Two Years

Bourdain Market, possibly the most anticipated opening of the decade, has now pushed back its anticipated debut date by two years. Both the website and the Instagram for the Anthony Bourdain international food market at Pier 57 now tout a 2019 opening — much later than the late 2017 date that’s been thrown around for months. Eater has reached out to the Bourdain Market for more information, but no official word yet on why the date has been changed by a whopping two years. Just a couple weeks ago, Bourdain told Adweek that he hoped to open it in 2017.

Still, it’s not a total surprise to have at least some delay. In the same Adweek interview, Bourdain mentioned that "it’s a huge, huge, huge undertaking" with a lot of paperwork hurdles, such as obtaining visas for must-have international vendors. Plus, Bourdain Market is being built on Pier 57, which has a host of its own complications. The pier is undergoing a massive $350 million redevelopment, and the whole thing involves a slew of government and community approvals. Developers only secured a $225 million loan to start the process this past spring.

But for eager Bourdain fans, the website does offer a little nugget to look forward to before 2019. They’ll be launching a mobile app in January so people can "learn about our food partners from around the world."
============================
http://ny.eater.com/2016/6/23/12017582/bourdain-market-2019

[mrnyc]

lots of activity at pier 57


http://i1340.photobucket.com/albums/o725/NYCnMore/nyc4/082DAF79-D5F6-4F7C-BB8B-64564E2E6CB6_zpsc8mwpywq.jpg (http://s1340.photobucket.com/user/NYCnMore/media/nyc4/082DAF79-D5F6-4F7C-BB8B-64564E2E6CB6_zpsc8mwpywq.jpg.html)

http://i1340.photobucket.com/albums/o725/NYCnMore/nyc4/D2002D9B-8FDE-4813-94E4-7E69385D2BF9_zpssbcvacfx.jpg (http://s1340.photobucket.com/user/NYCnMore/media/nyc4/D2002D9B-8FDE-4813-94E4-7E69385D2BF9_zpssbcvacfx.jpg.html)

[chris08876]

This thread should be renamed "Pier 57 Development". I think it may start to get confusing with all of the pier developments.

We have:

1) Pier 57 (Bourdain market + apartments I believe)
2) Pier 55 (small Park)
3) Pier 26 (yet another park/boardwalk like development)

Something along those lines.

Plus for Pier 57, its on the website: http://www.bourdainmarket.com/

2019!

[yankeesfan1000]

This thread should be renamed "Pier 57 Development". I think it may start to get confusing with all of the pier developments.

We have:

1) Pier 57 (Bourdain market + apartments I believe)
2) Pier 55 (small Park)
3) Pier 26 (yet another park/boardwalk like development)

Something along those lines.

Plus for Pier 57, its on the website: http://www.bourdainmarket.com/

2019!

Google signed a lease (http://ny.curbed.com/2015/12/23/10851804/its-official-google-signs-lease-for-enormous-pier-57-offices) to take office space at Pier 57, they've already outgrown their huge building a few blocks away. No apartments.

[chris08876]

Darn, so no apartment portion. I was also hoping Google would consider the WTC, but I guess not. :(

[mrnyc]

these threads should all be combined into a single 'manhattan piers redevelopment' thread. :tup:

[chris08876]

Anthony Bourdain cancels plans for food market at Google’s Pier 57

Despite hyping up his massive Singapore street hawker-style food hall and retail market at Google’s Pier 57 development since 2015, Anthony Bourdain announced today that he won’t be moving forward with the project, reports Eater. Back in March, his partner and CEO of what was dubbed Bourdain Market stepped down. At the same time, it was learned that they’d yet to sign a lease, both of which made the 2019 opening seem like a stretch. In a statement, Bourdain said, “It seems increasingly clear that in spite of my best efforts, the stars may not align at Pier 57 which is an especially complicated site for which we still do not have a lease.”

The Pier topped out this past June and has an anticipated opening of summer 2018. The $350 million project will include 250,000 square feet of offices for Google and an elevated two-acre park with a rooftop movie and performance amphitheater to be used for Tribeca Film Festival screenings. The developers did not respond to Eater for comment, so it’s not yet known if a food market is still in the plans.
======================
6SQFT (https://www.6sqft.com/anthony-bourdain-cancels-plans-for-food-market-at-googles-pier-57/)