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[NYguy]

https://www.otdowntown.com/news/huds...port-JY3526964

Hudson River Park Proposes $65M to Develop Stretch from Intrepid to Heliport





26 Jul 2024

The Hudson River Park Trust, keeper of the four-mile long park, informed Community Board four that it has begun planning for the improvement of the stretch of park from the Heliport to the Intrepid and has set aside $65 million for the work.

Meantime, Related Companies says it wants to replace its 2009 plan for developing the western end of Hudson Yards with a new $10 billion proposal for a casino and resort.

This being New York, neither plan has been greeted with unmitigated hurrahs.

“This is penny wise and pound foolish,” a longtime critic of the Hudson River Park Trust, Tom Fox, said of its announcement. “Let’s not deal with chump change. Let’s really design the section of the park as it should be designed and stop kicking the can down the road.”

He said that a comprehensive plan for this “missing piece” of the Hudson River Park should include a pedestrian bridge across route 9A (the West Side Highway, to most New Yorkers) at the Convention Center, robust flood resiliency against rising tides in the river and the removal of bus parking in that stretch of the park and of the heliport, long a bane to users of the park.

For its part, the Park Trust told Community Board Four it was in the early stages of planning, and was mainly seeking to introduce the planning team to the community. They said they had hired the architectural firm, Marvel Designs, to begin planning the new stretch of park.

The Park Trust said the $65 million for building these 17 blocks of the park would include state and local funds as well as revenue from development in the park. Governor Hochul signed legislation the other day approving private development on half of Pier 76, the former city tow pound, while preserving the other half for the park. The site is immediately across from The Javits Center.

The city 15 years ago approved a development plan for west Hudson Yards that was heavy with residential housing. But the developer, Related Properties, has never proceeded with that plan and recently asked to set it aside in favor of building a casino and hotel tower, one of eleven proposals in and around New York City seeking to win one of the three downstate casino licenses to be approved by the legislature

The Hudson Yards Casino proposal has drawn stiff opposition from the non-profit which run the High Line, the park on an old railroad that wraps around the western edge of the Hudson rail yards

To resist the casino plan, The High Line has just launched a Protect the High Line at the Rail Yards campaign.

“The western railyard was contemplated as a counterpoint to the eastern rail yard,” said Preeti Sodhi, the High Lines senior director of community and government relations. “Where the eastern rail yard is largely commercial and retail, the western rail yards proposed over 3,500 residential units, a school and some commercial space at the northern end of the development.”

.....She described the casino plan, undertaken with Wynn, as “a giant podium bigger than six Costco warehouses that will overwhelm the High Line and reduce the amount of housing.”