I received a call from Rebekah, a Columbia University journalism graduate writing her thesis on Pier 40. She was planning to write 5,000–6,000 words and had identified me as a source of information and “did I have a few minutes?” Well, of course, that trigged a 10 minute monologue going back to when the pier was built 50 years ago for the Holland–American Line as “the largest such pier in the United States” and coming up to date with the two strongest contenders for its future, the sports groups under the name Sports Champions and the once unsuccessful bidder, developer, Douglas Durst.
The sports dads want, of course, to keep all the playing fields and add more. They paid $150,000 to Tishman, an architectural practice, to arrive at the ideal solution i.e. three apartment towers with hundreds of market rate apartments and maybe a 150 room hotel – the cheapest thing to build for a guaranteed maximum profit and no car traffic to speak of except for the parking of the tenants and they will, I am sure, pay dearly for the privilege.
Yet that was before Sandy.
Pier 40 flooded up to four ft. and made junk of an unreported number of parked cars including mine, causing expensive damage to the five mile long park. After Sandy, Pier 40 was looking far more expensive to build on than, say, the Atlantic Yards and further away in time given the fact that Assemblyman Dick Gottfried still has to offer a change in use at the State Assembly in March 2013. In addition, he has yet to obtain approval for luxury condos from Assemblywoman Deborah Glick who is not keen on 15–story glass towers for the super rich. However, finding a developer to pay $50 million to replace or repair the reinforced concrete slabs, which like Lego blocks form the roof and floors of the pier, before he drops another $500 million to build something on it won’t be easy – you are going to have to look a little further for that developer.
As I was going out the door last week to catch our grandson Teddy playing the bass fiddle at the Christmas concert, I found a copy of The Villager with an article in which Durst says it will cost far less to fix Pier 40 than Madelyn Wils who heads the Hudson River Park Trust; $50 million less.
Hmm, what’s this all about?
Why is Durst saying that the decaying 15.5 acre, three level concrete pier is worth saving as a platform for some kind of development? We know he wants to invite somebody like Google to build Tech City on it, which Glick likes, but the pier still has to be made stable (it should not drop into the Hudson and it can’t invite four ft. of sea and sewerage in the next tidal surge).
As you read this, it is costing Durst, many thousands to pay architects and engineers to come up with a presentation that suggests Pier 40 can indeed be structurally stable and safe from tidal surges – a safe platform on which to build Tech City. The Villager story tells us that Durst hired his own under water inspection team to look at the 3700 steel piles to see how badly corroded they were and what it would cost to fix them. It mentions that the last time anybody fixed a corroding pile was in 1980 when the Port Authority was running the pier; I spoke to a nice young engineer who demonstrated with a lifted finger, “you could push your finger through the rust.” The quick fix is to place a fiberglass jacket around the corroded pile and force in waterproof concrete at $8,500 a pop and with 3700 piles, that is a lot of popping. Oh wait! Not all the piles have to be done right away, only 1000 of them. Yet Durst insists that has to be done right away or the cost goes up and if you do it now it is only $30 million.
When I asked Durst’s spokesperson Jason Barowitz, “Where do you suggest the Trust find this $30 million?” he only repeated that they needed to do it soon – very soon. The fact is, Durst has a plan for the Pier and they are waiting for CB 2 to give them a date as to when they can make a presentation. We are talking weeks or even days away from when you read this.
The Durst plan starts by lifting the first level some 20 ft., so a tidal surge may flow under, and then providing mechanical lifts for the parked cars. The lifts help to concentrate the number of cars into a tighter area providing more office space. (Barowitz insists that the valet, or as he calls it “attendant,” parking will not cost more. Currently, it is over $400 a month to park. On this newly elevated level, the sports fields will reappear and like the present structure, it will be shielded by more building surrounding it (the sports dads liked the enclosed court because it is shielded from the winds).
However, why is Durst spending good money to sell his Pier 40 plan? Why is he paying salaries to people to canvass and sell a Neighborhood Improvement District to the businesses and real estate along the five mile park if he has clearly announced that he will not bid for a lease on the saved and resuscitated Pier 40?
Now I am suppose to come up with an answer, but I do not have one.
Barowitz says that building residential towers on Pier 40 is – especially after Sandy – unsound engineering and they are making their presentation for the community to consider and espouse. Yet if they do – and there is nothing exciting or imaginative about this proposal – it is more practical and certainly more acceptable than 600 luxury condos but, then, again, why is Doug Durst paying all this money to do this?
Now, it is true that the Hudson River Park Trust walked away from his and Ben Korman’s proposal 5 years ago (I can recall it had, among other things, a collection of gardens from around the world). Doug may still be irritated with them and is going to show the Trust how a professional developer solves a problem; but, all these thousands of dollars to “get even?”
As I was completing this article, Doug Durst quit as the head of Friends of Hudson River Park, the organization which has become the official funding source outside the meager and ever decreasing funds from the City and State, to actually build out the pier’s so called capital improvements. It is assumed that he disagreed with the board of Friends who may be pushing for the construction of luxury apartments. Durst wants to stay within the designated uses of the pier to avoid having to change the law by a vote in the State Assembly by keeping parking and the sports fields and building offices and some retail (they will make a presentation before the community board in February).
Again Durst does not plan to be that developer – his spokes person, Jordan Barowitz says that he will not respond to a request for proposals should the Hudson River Park Trust offer one which repeats my question – would you spend $100,000 to prove you were right?
