No one can explain why expensive bridge went bad

From the NY Times:

It was supposed to be the coolest little bridge in New York City. Designed by the winner of a MacArthur “genius” grant and built at a cost of $4.1 million, it zigzagged just 400 feet down from Brooklyn Heights to the waterfront, bouncing slightly underfoot and adding a touch of rustic adventure to the bustling Brooklyn Bridge Park.

But the pedestrian bridge, which opened in March 2013, soon bounced a little too much. Then it started to move from side to side. Then, last August, it was closed abruptly — and temporarily — park officials said. By October, the target reopening date was amended to spring.

Now, with spring well underway, officials for the Brooklyn Bridge Park Corporation, which operates the park, still do not have an exact date for when the Squibb Park Bridge, as it is formally known, will reopen, though they say it will be sometime in late spring.

Nor could they specify what went wrong. Belinda Cape, a spokeswoman for the park corporation, attributed the problem broadly to a “misalignment” issue. “Engineers have been working to correct the issue and repair the bridge,” she said. “They’re pulling it back into alignment and testing it, section by section.”

In the absence of an explanation, park officials and local residents have speculated that construction at two nearby sites may have compromised the bridge, or maybe it was the tendency of teenagers to jump en masse to accentuate the bounce.

“In an environment like this, if people find out something is moving, they are going to move it to the max, especially younger kids,” said Nick Ivanoff, president of Ammann & Whitney, a leading bridge engineering firm that was not involved in the project.

Those answers have not been enough for elected officials like State Senator Daniel L. Squadron, a Democrat whose district includes Brooklyn Bridge Park. He has called on the park corporation to provide a full accounting of the bridge’s defects and to recoup the cost of repairs, estimated at about $700,000.

Park officials say they planned to do both, although they declined to say whether they would also sue the engineer who designed the bridge.

What we allow these days is a crime

From Gawker:

In Brooklyn, there is a nice park under the Brooklyn Bridge. Brooklyn Bridge Park. Nice fun place. If you stand on the promenade, a public walkway in Brooklyn Heights, you look out over the park. You see the nice park. You see Manhattan. You see the Brooklyn Bridge. It's nice. A nice, free, democratic public view for everyone to enjoy.

Except: there is a now a condo being built in Brooklyn Bridge Park. (Technically, it is "adjacent" to the park, due to the fact that there cannot be a park where a condo stands.) The city approved this condo, called Pierhouse, with the idea that the taxes on it would help fund the park. Pierhouse (which will also feature a hotel) has proven to be so popular that, in its first ten weeks on the market last year, the developer, Toll Brothers, raised prices six times. Pierhouse is selling for $1,800 per square foot, the highest price in all of Brooklyn. This project, built on what used to be public land, has been great for private interests: "The developer, which is investing nearly $39 million in the project, is projecting revenues of at least $250 million from the development." It's easy to see why the ultrawealthy rushed in to snap up the multimillion-dollar condos. It's not just the 18-foot ceilings and wood floors from 600-year-old heartwood pine and Ruscello Fosso Picollo marble tile bathroom floors and locally sourced 18-bottle undercounter wine storage; it's the view. The view is spectacular. As you would expect, since the building is located in a waterfront park.

If you walk through Brooklyn Bridge Park now, you will see the hulking concrete shell of Pierhouse rising up. If you stand at the end of the promenade now, in order to gaze out at the beautiful view of the Brooklyn Bridge, you will see that that view is now partially blocked by the Pierhouse condo. No longer does the promenade offer a view of a park, an iconic skyline, and the Brooklyn Bridge; it now offers a view of a park, an iconic skyline, and part of a bridge obscured by an enormous glass fortress full of people far richer than those forced to stand outside in order to enjoy the view. In a very real way, the public's park, the public's air, and the public's view have been packaged and sold off to millionaires. The public can no longer even stroll through a public park without being confronted by a gleaming glass Gorgon of multimillion-dollar apartments.

Many people, including those with a direct interest in this project, will tell you that the Pierhouse project provides a public benefit by generating tax revenues that will pay for the rest of the park. Can't argue with that. Those who espouse this view should look forward to the day when the city of New York sells off half of Central Park to developers. To fund the other half. After all, there is no sin greater than leaving money on the table.

Pols call for a change in plans for condos-in-park scheme

From the NY Times:

Brooklyn Bridge Park, which stretches 1.3 miles along the East River waterfront, was a creation of the administration of Michael R. Bloomberg, with a novel — and contentious — financing mechanism in the form of luxury housing in the park.

But now that City Hall is under new leadership, a group of elected officials is calling on Mayor Bill de Blasio to scale back some of that housing, intended to help pay for the costly upkeep of the park, which is buffeted by tides. In particular, they want the mayor to halt plans for two residential towers at Pier 6, one of several recreational piers in the park.

In a letter to Mr. de Blasio, dated April 7, a group of city, state and federal lawmakers expressed their dismay at the “breakneck speed” with which the administration was pursuing the housing at Pier 6 and urged the new administration to “work collaboratively on alternative park financing, rather than moving forward with the Bloomberg plan.”

The letter was signed by State Senator Daniel L. Squadron, State Assemblywoman Joan Millman, United States Representative Nydia M. Velázquez, and City Councilmen Stephen T. Levin and Brad Lander.

Maintenance of the waterfront park, whose piers are adversely affected by marine organisms, as well as winds and tides, is unusually expensive, estimated to cost about $16 million a year. But the housing, some of which is already built, was controversial from the start, with a number of community leaders and lawmakers arguing that it set a dangerous precedent for public parkland.

Will the real Bill DeBlasio please stand up?

From The Daily Beast:

In 2004 de Blasio was a paid adviser to John Edwards’s presidential campaign. And in this year’s mayoral race, his rhetoric about “a tale of two cities”—a line he has used to critique growing income inequality—has echoed Edwards’s rhetoric from 2004 about the “two Americas.” Yet while serving on the City Council, he frequently found himself on the wrong side of progressives in his district (admittedly not hard in ultraliberal Park Slope) and was sometimes blasted for favoring developers and real-estate interests over community concerns about congestion and quality of life.

For example, he sided with a developer in opposing the designation of the Gowanus Canal as a Superfund site—even as nearby residents said that the city was ill equipped to carry out the cleanup on its own. He pushed to allow luxury housing in Brooklyn Bridge Park. And he was one of the primary backers of the controversial redevelopment of Atlantic Yards into a basketball arena for the Brooklyn Nets—a nearly decade-long fight that pitted local residents against powerful real-estate interests.

De Blasio’s most important maneuver has been to capitalize on liberal frustration with Mayor Mike Bloomberg.

“He said that it was necessary to stop the tide of gentrification, but everyone knows this was the most gentrifying thing to ever happen to Brooklyn,” says Lucy Koteen, a local political activist who backs current City Comptroller John Liu. “He is not wrong about the ‘tale of two cities.’ But look at his record. Did he help level the playing field, or is he on the side of developers who have gotten rich displacing people?”

From the NY Post:

The City Planning Commission rep appointed by Public Advocate Bill de Blasio — a critic of big developers — voted with the administration 93 percent of the time, records show.

One of those votes was to approve Extell’s West Side tower that includes a “poor door” separating subsidized tenants from those paying market rents.

A de Blasio spokesman said the rep actually fought “the poor door,” but Extell found a way around her objection.

De Blasio’s rep has voted in favor of 554 out of 595 projects since 2010.

Capital New York has a good wrap-up of his development stances in the past.

He was against park housing before he was for it

From the NY Post:

State Sen. Dan Squadron took in more than $65,000 from supporters of a residential development at Brooklyn Bridge Park — after he struck a deal that enabled housing at the site.

Squadron, a Democrat who’s running for public advocate, promised during his 2008 Senate campaign to fight all housing in the park, but his 2011 deal with the Bloomberg administration allows for some residential development there, albeit less than originally planned at the site.

He has received cash from members of the Brooklyn Bridge Park Conservancy and Brooklyn Bridge Development Corp., which support housing in the park as it undergoes renovation.

“Apparently, if the money comes from the right ZIP code, with the right connections, Squadron is just your average old-school pol,” said a source familiar with the deal.

They might not build it union

From DNA Info:

A new luxury hotel and condo tower at the gleaming Brooklyn Bridge Park will likely not be built or run by union workers.

The labor organizations representing hotel staffers and construction workers say they have been stonewalled by the developers selected for the controversial Pier 1 complex--Toll Brothers City Living and Starwood Capital Group.

At stake are an estimated 210 permanent jobs and 300 construction jobs at the waterfront park.

Last year, there were seven bids for the project from different developers, according to records. Five of those proposals would likely have included using union workers, union officials said.

Park officials promised to give preference to developers with a good labor history.

At issue is a state law passed in 2009.

The Public Authority Reform Act requires developers on public land sign a "labor peace" agreement, which typically leads to union workers being hired.
Union officials and pols say that law applies to the parks project too.

Brooklyn Bridge officials insist the law doesn’t apply to the park becauseof its unique financing situation.

Brooklyn Bridge Park condo development questioned

From the Daily News:

Community advocates and local pols are criticizing the Bloomberg administration's plan to find a developer to build a luxury condo tower in a DUMBO flood zone.

Brooklyn Bridge Park officials Monday detailed plans for a proposed 13-story complex with with retail stores on the ground floor and up to 110 parking spaces on a vacant lot on John St. just east of the Manhattan Bridge. The 130-unit building is expected to be designed with state-of-the-art flood protections, including a raised bottom level and an electric system on a top floor, park officials said.

Still, the location and much of the park was buried under four feet of water by Super Storm Sandy, raising concerns about new developments.

“We now know what a big bad storm can do to DUMBO and it ain't pretty,” said City Councilman Steve Levin (D-Greenpoint), who has been a frequent critic of housing in the park. “We need to re-evaluate how we build along the water and this would be a great place to start,” he added.

More privatization of public parkland

From The Brooklyn Paper:

Fenced-off yards attached to planned condos in Brooklyn Bridge Park are a greenspace-hogging affront on precious public land, frustrated park-boosters say.

A proposal for a controversial housing complex on Pier 1 calls for landscaped private terraces linked to ground-floor residential units — a design that betrays the very definition of “park,” according to recreation advocates.

“The principal is ridiculous,” said yards-in-the-park opponents Roy Sloane, who sits on the park’s advisory council. “They’re taking up land that should belong to future generations of park-goers.”

Sloane and other critics say the architectural misstep turns the park into a literal and figurative backyard for wealthy developers and their future tenants.

He also fears the private yards will set the stage for yard-style activities — such as laundry-drying and tiki-torch-burning — near the park’s stunning promenade, potentially tainting the valuable public commodity.

The new design revives a long-simmering battle over the use of the waterfront space and ultimately how to fund the park’s $16-million annual maintenance budget — a dilemma that stems from a 2002 agreement requiring the park to raise its own cash so it won’t drain public coffers.

Criminal companies get city contracts

From NBC 4:

Hundreds of millions of dollars in government contracts are going to firms with criminal histories and serious safety violations, News 4's I-Team has found.

The I-Team analyzed 25 of New York City’s biggest public construction projects by dollar value.

Data from the Mayor’s Office of Contract Services show 10 of those jobs went to construction firms that have criminal convictions, criminal settlements, or serious safety violations on their records.

One corporate offender is Skanska, the international firm currently in charge of the $508 million Brooklyn Bridge renovation.

Before winning the bridge project, Skanska pleaded no contest to criminal charges related to the mishandling of asbestos in California. Last year, Skanska paid $19.6 million to settle charges it defrauded the federal government in a scheme to win contracts intended for minority-owned businesses.

Another company that won a city contract despite disclosing a criminal record was Worth Construction. The Connecticut-based firm is in charge of a $13 million renovation of Queens Borough Hall.

Before winning that bid in 2011, Worth pleaded guilty to tax evasion. The former owner of the company also admitted to giving an illegal kickback to a public official.

$350M for Brooklyn Bridge Park - and we're footing the bill

From the Daily News:

The new Brooklyn Bridge Park has drawn huge crowds and, with spring arriving, more Brooklynites are sure to flock to the waterfront.

Plans are for the park to eventually stretch 85 acres and cost $350 million, but officials have so far secured only $294,241,000 from the city and Port Authority, meaning parts of the plan are still in flux.

A series of complex deals between city and state officials have added and subtracted elements.

The Daily News took a look at what’s done, what’s planned, what’s paid for and what’s not.

Is this kind of money being spent on park projects anywhere in Queens? Why aren't our electeds fighting for equal compensation, especially since Queens will be taking on the largest share of the 1M people predicted to come to NYC by 2030? The answer is they don't have to because we re-elect them anyway.

Lame Bklyn pols cave into Bloomberg

From the NY Post:

Two state legislators are relinquishing their power to keep more controversial high-rise housing from being built at the new Brooklyn Bridge Park, under a deal with the city to be signed today, The Post has learned.

When the city last year took control of the project from the state, it agreed to give veto power over housing to the two local legislators, state Sen. Daniel Squadron and Assemblywoman Joan Millman, both Democrats.

Both pols have now agreed not to use it to keep hundreds of apartments planned within the park from being built, sources said.

In exchange, 40,000-square-feet will be shaved off one high rise set for John Street in DUMBO, and two other planned buildings within the park at Pier 6 in Brooklyn Heights could be shrunk or eliminated through a formula involving properties owned by the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society.

The deal helps ensure the stalled 85-acre waterfront project gets fully built, but news of it still left some community activist shocked and furious last night.

Both Squadron and Millman were carried into new terms, in part, after campaigning heavily against the city’s plans to add more housing.

From the NY Post:

The city has begun soliciting proposals from developers interested in building a 180-unit condo tower and a 225-room hotel at Pier 1 on the Brooklyn Heights waterfront.

The development would take place on the former site of the Cold Storage Warehouse buildings, which the city plans to lease to a developer who’d build and operate the new structures.

The move comes two days after the city reached a deal for additional housing to be built within the park at two other sites, helping ensure enough revenues are generated so the entire 85-acre waterfront park project can be completed.

The new Pier 1 projects will include interior parking spaces and ground-floor public restrooms.

Judge rules city did something shady

From the NY Post:

A Brooklyn federal judge yesterday ruled the National Parks Service illegally booted two historic 19th century buildings from parkland protection so the city could sell them to private developers as part of the Brooklyn Bridge Park project.

Judge Eric Vitalianio ruled that the feds violated proper procedures, such as replacing the property with new park space.

The scathing 14-page decision devastates the city's embattled plan to turn over the roofless Tobacco Warehouse to a DUMBO arts group, St. Ann's Warehouse, for a $15 million project to bring community events and live theater to the park.

It backs a preliminary injunction that was issued in April and also protects the Civil War-era Empire Stores site.

A city lawyer said, "We . . . are evaluating our options," and may appeal.

Now does this make sense?

From the Brooklyn Paper:

The city quietly slashed the main source of revenue for Brooklyn Bridge Park, revealing only this week that a luxury condo that funds the park’s maintenance budget is now paying $1 million less — leaving a gaping hole in revenue at a time when planners are struggling to raise even more money for upkeep.

One Brooklyn Bridge Park, a high-rise within the park’s footprint, is supposed to pay $3 million annually, but the Department of Finance recently granted the condo’s developer a reduction in those payments.

The massive loss of revenue comes at a time when city officials are pushing for more housing to fund the park despite public opposition — and it raises the question of whether new high-rises will actually cover future expenses.

One Brooklyn Bridge Park, a former warehouse at 360 Furman St. that was converted into a condo and included inside the park footprint as a financing scheme, had brought in $1.8 million in fees and $1.25 million in ground rent to the park.

But the slashed the tenants’ fees to $800,000 this year after the condo’s developer, Robert A. Levine, requested an exemption, according to a Department of Finance spokesman.

Years ago, Levine got a steep tax break to build the high-rise within the park. At the time, he fought opposition to the sweetheart dealing, saying that the more he earned from his luxury tenants, the more he would put back into the park’s coffers.

City can't afford Brooklyn Bridge Park maintenance

From Crains:

The slim chance that the 85-acre Brooklyn Bridge Park might be completed anytime soon is getting slimmer. A committee responsible for identifying ways to cover the estimated $16 million a year needed to maintain the space faces a deadline in a month, and how it will accomplish the goal is unclear.

“If we don't have a financial model, we won't be able to proceed with construction,” said Regina Myer, president of the Brooklyn Bridge Park Corp., the nonprofit charged with planning, building and maintaining the park.

The city, which assumed control of the project from the state last year, will contribute about $50 million more toward completing the park only if it can reach an agreement with BBPC on a program for self-sustained funding.

The initial plan calls for building six residential properties with a total of as many as 1,300 units, most of them along the edge of the 1.3-mile waterfront park. Residents would pay for the benefit with what amounts to a surcharge, which would help maintain the park at their doorstep.

Why did we take over this extremely expensive project without first having a way to pay for it? Why is the City denying other neighborhoods park space but prioritizing one that they'll never be able to maintain? Sounds like another High Line boondoggle.

Bloomberg bitchslapped by Fed judge

From the NY Post:

A Brooklyn federal judge has ruled that the National Park Service illegally removed two historic 19th century buildings from US parkland protection to boost the city's plans for private developers to take over the sites as part of the Brooklyn Bridge Park project.

The decision, issued Friday, is a big blow to the city's plan to turn over the roofless Tobacco Warehouse to a DUMBO arts group, St. Ann's Warehouse, for a $15 million project to bring community events and live theater to the park.

The preliminary injunction also protects the Civil War-era Empire Stores site within the park from the city's development plans.

Part of the new city park occupies the site of a former federally run park.

The decision was in response to a lawsuit filed by groups, including the Brooklyn Heights Association, claiming the park service bowed to pressure from the Bloomberg administration by illegally demapping both buildings from federally protected parkland.

Park domes removed

From the NY Times:

Three silvery domes that had been installed in the new Brooklyn Bridge Park for children to play on — but which instead scorched their young hands — have been removed.

In their place on Tuesday evening were an empty plot and two mainstream pieces of playground equipment — one for climbing and another for sitting in the shade.

Elizabeth Mitchell, a spokeswoman for the Empire State Development Corporation, which oversees the park, located near Brooklyn Heights, said the domes were removed on Friday.

The $84,000 domes were installed at the toddler playground in March. But within a week of their unveiling, parents reported that their children were burning their hands on them – and screaming out in pain.

Back to the drawing board for park domes

MYFOXNY.COM - An experiment with shiny steel climbing domes in a Brooklyn park has ended after a baby girl severely burned herself on one of them.

The shiny structures have caused problems since the playground at Brooklyn Bridge Park opened in the spring.

The metal domes baked in the sun in the park designed for young children. Parents started complaining almost immediately.

The first solution was to put up signs warning parents that the structures can be hot. The signs also said that they expected the trees canopy to eventually provide shade for the domes.

The Brooklyn Bridge Park Development Corporation's next idea was to put tarps over the domes but that was problematic since they had to be moved all day.

The final straw was on Wednesday when a baby girl touched a dome and reportedly left her hands blistered. Another child was also burned but not as badly.

On Friday, white cloths covered the domes and barricades were set up around all of them.

Brooklyn Bridge Park becomes vibrant and diverse

From the Brooklyn Paper:

A Santeria-style shocker has washed up on the shores of DUMBO — a bag full of dead birds, fish, food and even some cash!

Pro photographer Steve Harris spotted the macabre mess during an otherwise pleasant stroll last Sunday in the park at the foot of Main Street, just east of Empire–Fulton Ferry State Park.

Inside a soaking blue sack were decapitated turkeys, a smaller bird, dead fish, beans, corn, root vegetables, plantains, and six $1 bills.

“I was so horrified,” said Harris. “I’m a photographer — normally I would go get my tripod and come back and shoot it. But this time I was so taken aback, I took a few pictures with my iPhone and fled.”

Harris believes that the latest incident may be linked to our ongoing coverage of the injured Cayuga duck in Prospect Park, the latest in a months-long saga of mysterious happenings in the natural area that includes dumped chicken heads and intestines along the lakefront.

When the best case scenario doesn't happen

From the NY Observer:

On May 17, Governor Paterson and several other officials and community leaders assembled on Manhattan's West Side for a ribbon cutting at Hudson River Park, the 5-mile-long strip of green space, converted piers and bike lanes along the Hudson River. They were on hand to christen the new (and growing) park's latest section, a 9-acre run that has a new skate park and gardens near West 24th Street.

It is, indeed, the season of parks: Earlier this spring, the long-planned Brooklyn Bridge Park opened its first section, a large pier; and the year-old High Line elevated park that runs through Chelsea is laying materials for its second phase, to open next year.

There's just one little nagging detail with these expanding parks: There's not enough money to fund their upkeep, and, for the most part, no one quite knows where it will come from.

All three parks were held up as gems of an economic development agenda in New York, as, theoretically, they were to be self-sustaining or close to it, with the private sector to pay for the ongoing operations. Yet the situation is one of classic overreach, as the administrations of Mayor Bloomberg and three governors put their faith in the panacea concept of the public-private partnership, pledging a win-win for all involved. The logic ran like this: New parks would be built; creative planning would open the floodgates to money from the private sector to fund maintenance year after year; and public balance sheets would be spared. The reality is far less heartwarming. The city and state are now grasping to find ways to make the parks work in the long term and are finding no answers that pass muster with the local communities and elected officials whose sign-off is needed. With this question mark hanging overhead, the fact that the groundbreakings continue-money continues to go into expansion-looks to be something of a reckless move, as officials are betting that some unspecified solution will indeed materialize at some future date.

$5M for a park bridge in Brooklyn...

From the Courier-Life:

Brooklyn Heights’ next big makeover is underway — the resurrection of the long-defunct Squibb Park into a gateway to the new Brooklyn Bridge Park.

Squibb Park closed because of regulations requiring that an employee work the comfort station — basically a shack with bathrooms and an attendant — during park hours. The new park, she said, will be an inviting hangout for all ages, and there will be a park employee on hand.

The renovations will be finished by mid-summer, the city has said.

But the second phase of the project — the $5-million bridge extending over Furman Street down to the pier — is hogging the spotlight for the Brooklyn Bridge Park Development Corporation, which wants to build, but lacks the funds.

The bridge was all but nixed last year when Mayor Bloomberg announced his budget woes. But now that the city has taken over maintenance and operations of the $350-million Brooklyn Bridge Park and allocated an extra $55 million to its construction, the Squibb Park Bridge is back on the table.