Though the crucial CitiStorage site is still at large, Friends of Bushwick Inlet Park is celebrating an incremental victory in its fight to secure the full 28-acre park Brooklyn was promised so long ago.
The city finally made good on its efforts to purchase seven additional acres of the Bayside Fuel property for $53 million, scooping up the parcel located at 1 North 12th Street last Tuesday. Perhaps the second time’s a charm, because its previous attempt to strike a deal with Bayside stalled in 2015.
“We knew it was in the works, but we didn’t know exactly when it was going to happen,” Stephen Chesler of Friends of Bushwick Inlet Park told Gothamist. “We’re very grateful that all of the land has been acquired but CitiStorage, and we encourage the City to ride the momentum and make the full park like they promised.”
According to Gothamist, the city has set aside $22 million for the demolition and remediation of the Bayside site. Currently, remediation is underway at 50 Kent, where Brooklyn Flea used to be.
The city had purchased another Bayside Fuel property at 1 Franklin Street in 2014 for $4.6 million. That parcel was 4.75 acres, according to The Real Deal.
This adds to the current parkland between North 7th and North 10th streets that the city originally claimed via eminent domain in 2007.
The CitiStorage warehouse that went up in flames a year ago remains the elusive wildcard — and the only piece left for the city to acquire. Owner Norm Brodsky has claimed that the 11-acre site could be worth as much as $500 million, but de Blasio recently vowed to resist pressure to rezone the property for residential use.
Bushwick Inlet Park has been rapidly escalating as a rather expensive proposition. When the city first made promises for the park in 2005, it estimated the cost to fall in the range of $60 million to $90 million. With this latest purchase, the city has spent nearly $300 million acquiring land, and the CitiStorage site does not promise to be a cheap land grab.
The sale was first reported by Law360, though the information is all available via public records.