Ok Greenpointers, we really need to step up our game. In the months since CitiStorage mysteriously went up in flames,we were warned that our promised 28 acre park was in jeopardy of getting turned into more luxury towers. Â Sadly, that day of reckoning is near.
According to a recent Crain’s article, CitiStorage owner Norman Brodsky , (the man seen twirling his pinky ring in the photo below) is optioning off his 11 acre land to not one but TWO developers so they can built more luxury apartments and a whole lot of equally pricey commercial space.
According to Mr. Brodsky, his phone has been ringing off the hook these days with offers as high as $250 million dollars despite the 11 acre property’s current zoning restrictions. If that number weren’t enough to make your eyes bleed, this $250 million dollar price tag is only half of it according to Brodsky, who just a few weeks ago touted the value of his land to be worth a mere half a BILLION dollars.
So where does the city stands in all this insane high-stake bidding? After all, the city is the one who zoned CitiStorage’s lot specifically for a park, and the city is also responsible for this bottomless bucket of real estate greed on our waterfront when they signed off on the 2005 waterfront rezoning.
Bad news–Mayor De Blasio says the city has no funds to complete the park, and even worse, he is actively talking to developers to build more towers and make them BIGGER, all on top of the CitiStorage lot!
“Mayor Bill de Blasio’s administration is said to favor a plan in which a private developer covers the cost of acquiring the site and converts a portion of it into parkland in exchange for the right to build high-priced residential towers with affordable housing on the remainder.” Crain’s May 8th, 2015
If you aren’t mad yet, you should be. Greenpoint and Williamsburg already have the lowest park to person ration in the entire city, add at least 15 more residential skyscrapers to the mix and we’re looking at a dangerous health situation far worse than any of us can imagine.
So tomorrow morning between 10 and 1 pm head on down to North 12th and Kent and join Friends of Bushwick Inlet Park in telling Mayor De Blasio what you really think of his bromance with the real estate industry. Like the big bad wolf, it is high time we Greenpointers huff, puff, and blow down this godforsaken house of cards before we lose our parkland for good.
As much as we all love parks and would love to see it happen (me in particular), there really isn’t much point in fighting this. A private individual owns the land, the city wants nothing to do with it and have already washed their hands of it. The harsh reality is that unless private individuals can come up with $500M to buy this from Norman Brodsky, get ready for more skyscrapers..
I’m generally in agreement with James. $500 million is an awful lot of money, and I’d rather that money go to plug in the MTA capital plan than towards this particular plot. There’s already places for park space along the waterfront, including Bushwick Inlet itself, and I believe the city has already closed on the Bayside fuel facility next door, so a majority of the park will be built anyway. It just doesn’t seem worth an extra $500M for this parcel.