Did you know Brooklyn Bridge Park may never be finished? The park isn’t actually fully funded yet. Yup, in order to complete construction–Piers 2 and 3, the outer section of Pier 6, the section in Dumbo, and Brooklyn Bridge Plaza–it needs about $130 million. The city has offered this capital but will only provide it with a viable plan of how to fund the park’s maintenance and operations. The obvious angle is building housing (like One Brooklyn Bridge), which many in the community are against. What’s the answer? Here’s a general idea of what the Brooklyn Bridge Conservancy has to say about the matter:
Of the alternatives studied, the Conservancy believes that the careful and judicious use of private events, the exploration of sponsorship opportunities and private philanthropy in support of capital projects, and the metering of existing street level parking spaces hold some potential as revenue sources.
But let’s be clear that these and other revenue alternatives outlined in the report [Brooklyn Bridge Park's Committee on Alternatives to Housing and the most recent study on revenue alternatives] will not be sufficient to replace the Pier 6 and John St residential sites, which are expected to contribute approximately $8.25 million in revenues per year, nor the Pier 1 residences. However, as we have advocated, these new funds could help to reduce the scale of residential development in the park. We call on Brooklyn Bridge Park Corporation to examine that potential quickly and thoroughly.
Limited residential development actually privatizes the park far less than some of the alternatives outlined in the BAE report, such as taking up more open space by spreading additional retail stores across the park’s boundaries, or building a parking garage on what could be open space, or charging fees for basketball courts that are free at every other park in the city.
We think the park’s designers are right when they note that in the case of Brooklyn Bridge Park, which is cut off from surrounding neighborhoods by the Brooklyn Queens Expressway, having people live on the park’s edges will help activate and energize the open spaces and provide critical “eyes on the park” for what can be an isolated area. And additional residents will support the retail activities already envisioned in the park’s plan.
We call on the Brooklyn Bridge Park Corporation, the Mayor, and our local elected officials to reach an agreement and move forward now with a revenue plan that fully funds a safe, beautiful, and vibrant Brooklyn Bridge Park and fully commit the remaining $130 million in capital funds to complete the world-class, waterfront park this community has worked for over the past twenty-five years.
What do you think? Can you deal with a few more condos to get the park finished? Or is there another way to raise this kind of cash?