A public hearing on two proposals to redevelop Pier 40 on the Hudson River at Houston Street was attended by more than a thousand people last night at P.S. 41 in Greenwich Village.
One of the proposals, shown at the right, is a $626 million plan by Pier 40 Performing Arts Center, a project of the Related Companies, that Jeff Blau, president of Related, said would add facilities for the Cirque du Soleil and the TriBeCa Film Festival, a 1,800-seat music hall, shops and restaurants, parking spaces, a marina and playing fields.
The other proposal, known as the People's Pier, by Urban Cove and CampGroup Inc., would build a high school, three swimming pools and additional space for parks and athletic fields. Urban Cove is a non-profit organization that serves 800 at-risk youth each year and its Net Gain program provides 17 public high schools in the city that lack gym facilities with free gym space for their after-school programs. CampGroup LLC runs 14 camps in the Northeast and Midwest serving about 5,000 children each summer. It is owned by Benerofe Properties Group, and KRG Holdings, a real estate investment firm of the Klein family.
Richard Dattner is the architect for the People's Pier.
The People's Pier proposal has a construction budget of about $160 million including $31 million for infrastructure, pile and substructure work and it requires no public subsidies. It will create an 8-court indoor sports facility and three additional outdoor fields for youth and adult sports, as well as three indoor and outdoor pools and an additional 175,000 square feet of active and passive recreational parkland and space for a new public middle/high school and space for boating and water-related activities.
Many of those attending the meeting wore patches deriding the Related proposal as "Las Vegas on the Hudson" and held up placards proclaiming "Affordable Indoor Soccer."
The Hudson River Park Trust maintains it must develop the pier to create revenue for the upkeep of the five-mile park, which was chartered in 1998 and is still under construction.
The Hudson River Park Act disallowed hotels, residential uses, manufacturing, warehousing, office uses not related to permitted park uses and gambling vessels on the 14-acre site that was built in 1954 for the Holland America Line as a commercial shipping terminal, a function that become obsolete by commercial air travel.
The pier was used for storage, offices and a bus depot before it was converted to a public parking garage and a soccer field was built atop the two-story pier building in 1999, 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.
Last August, the trust issued a request for proposals to maintain and improve the pier, and enhance waterfront access for the surrounding community and region. It received four proposals and narrowed them to the two current plans. Arthur Schwartz, a co-moderator of last night's meeting, indicated a decision will probably not be made until the fall and then the plan will be subject to public environmental and uniform land use review procedures.
The trust will accept written comments about the proposals until June 19 and they can be addressed to Noreen Doyle, Hudson River Park Trust, Pier 40 at West and Houston Streets, 353 West Street, New York, NY 10014.
Andrew Berman, executive director of the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation, spoke in opposition to the Related Plan, arguing that "the sheer physical size of such a development would have an enormous impact upon the bordering areas," adding that it would serve "as a regional destination, drawing enormous crowds on a regular basis to the area, almost exclusively by car."
One of the proposals, shown at the right, is a $626 million plan by Pier 40 Performing Arts Center, a project of the Related Companies, that Jeff Blau, president of Related, said would add facilities for the Cirque du Soleil and the TriBeCa Film Festival, a 1,800-seat music hall, shops and restaurants, parking spaces, a marina and playing fields.
The other proposal, known as the People's Pier, by Urban Cove and CampGroup Inc., would build a high school, three swimming pools and additional space for parks and athletic fields. Urban Cove is a non-profit organization that serves 800 at-risk youth each year and its Net Gain program provides 17 public high schools in the city that lack gym facilities with free gym space for their after-school programs. CampGroup LLC runs 14 camps in the Northeast and Midwest serving about 5,000 children each summer. It is owned by Benerofe Properties Group, and KRG Holdings, a real estate investment firm of the Klein family.
Richard Dattner is the architect for the People's Pier.
The People's Pier proposal has a construction budget of about $160 million including $31 million for infrastructure, pile and substructure work and it requires no public subsidies. It will create an 8-court indoor sports facility and three additional outdoor fields for youth and adult sports, as well as three indoor and outdoor pools and an additional 175,000 square feet of active and passive recreational parkland and space for a new public middle/high school and space for boating and water-related activities.
Many of those attending the meeting wore patches deriding the Related proposal as "Las Vegas on the Hudson" and held up placards proclaiming "Affordable Indoor Soccer."
The Hudson River Park Trust maintains it must develop the pier to create revenue for the upkeep of the five-mile park, which was chartered in 1998 and is still under construction.
The Hudson River Park Act disallowed hotels, residential uses, manufacturing, warehousing, office uses not related to permitted park uses and gambling vessels on the 14-acre site that was built in 1954 for the Holland America Line as a commercial shipping terminal, a function that become obsolete by commercial air travel.
The pier was used for storage, offices and a bus depot before it was converted to a public parking garage and a soccer field was built atop the two-story pier building in 1999, 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.
Last August, the trust issued a request for proposals to maintain and improve the pier, and enhance waterfront access for the surrounding community and region. It received four proposals and narrowed them to the two current plans. Arthur Schwartz, a co-moderator of last night's meeting, indicated a decision will probably not be made until the fall and then the plan will be subject to public environmental and uniform land use review procedures.
The trust will accept written comments about the proposals until June 19 and they can be addressed to Noreen Doyle, Hudson River Park Trust, Pier 40 at West and Houston Streets, 353 West Street, New York, NY 10014.
Andrew Berman, executive director of the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation, spoke in opposition to the Related Plan, arguing that "the sheer physical size of such a development would have an enormous impact upon the bordering areas," adding that it would serve "as a regional destination, drawing enormous crowds on a regular basis to the area, almost exclusively by car."
Architecture Critic
Carter Horsley
Since 1997, Carter B. Horsley has been the editorial director of CityRealty. He began his journalistic career at The New York Times in 1961 where he spent 26 years as a reporter specializing in real estate & architectural news. In 1987, he became the architecture critic and real estate editor of The New York Post.
6sqft delivers the latest on real estate, architecture, and design, straight from New York City.
