Driving past 160 Imlay Street in Red Hook last weekend, all we could think to ourselves was, “What a waste.” Here’s a site that was sitting unused generating no tax dollars for the city or revenues for neighboring business when its owners received a variance in December 2003 to convert it into a mixed-use building with residential on the upper floors and retail on the lower. Within weeks, however, a coalition called the Red Hook/Gowanus Chamber of Commerce, whose ostensible raison d’etre was to preserve and promote the industrial character and usage of the neighborhood, sued to reverse the BSA decision and squash the project. Why? Hard to say exactly. Some believe the group’s heart is in the right place; others charge that it’s basically a front for certain players in Red Hook to protect their own interests. One thing’s for sure: The fact that one of the Chamber’s leaders and largest land owners in the area, Greg O’Connell, has since leased out the floors above yuppie-mecca Fairway as market-rate apartments while the competition on Imlay Street is tied up in litigation hasn’t exactly strengthened the group’s credibility. Meanwhile, the politicians have been too chicken to do anything that could possibly be perceived to be anti-industry in the area, though we can’t see why the debate has to be reduced to an unnuanced either/or choice between jobs and housing. While there are certainly residents who don’t want the neighborhood to change, it’s hard for anyone to argue that the status quo is either working or the best allocation of scarce resources in an overcrowded city. So what of 160 Imlay? Another round of appeals was heard in October but no decision has yet to come of it. In the meantime, the building and the surrounding lots continue to sit undeveloped, derelict and not doing anyone any good—not the longshoremen, not the tourists arriving on cruise ships and certainly not the nearby restaurants and shops that could use the extra business generated by a couple hundred more units of housing in the area.
Crumbling Hopes for 160 Imlay Street? [Brownstoner] GMAP P*Shark DOB