160 Imlay Street: A Sacrificial Lamb?
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…
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
well, Brownstoner, perhaps this is a much more interesting discussion because your post was about something other than the usual “here’s a 3 million dollar house, for which I’m providing advertising for the broker, hot or not? discuss..” types of posts. There are a lot more interesting development stories out there – problem is, I’m not sure you current advertisers would pay for them. Perhaps a better mix of stories can be had – let one pay for the other…
This would make some very interesting investigative journalism if it was agressively pursued. Who is being used? Who is being paid off? What are the real forces at play here? Is the activism rooted in the desire to protect real workers and a dignified way of life or to advance the agenda of rich landowners at the expense of local residents?
What is better for the stability of a neighborhood – Fairway with its traffic and the transient nature of rental tenants? Maybe new condo owners who are vested in the neighborhood (even if they watch sex in the city) or maybe even good old fashioned light industry? There are some complicated forces at play here and many of those forces are not exactly as they appear at first glance.
I’ve been working in Red Hook as a welder for almost 3 decades. I’ve spent my entire time working at one company. When I first started working in Red Hook, Red Hook was a dangerous place. I was scared to go on the street. My car was broken into many times and a few times I wish I’d had a gun with me while trying to get home. I could not take my daughters or my wife to show them my shop, and I felt uncomfortable even going to work. I’ve been waiting for Red Hook to get nicer for as long as I can remember.
Now it’s actually a good place to live and it’s getting nicer. Too bad it didn’t happen 20 years ago.
And now that someone wants to make Red Hook a little nicer still and a little safer for us working folk, why do people not let this project go on? It’s a big building and that means a lot of work. Plumbers, carpenters, electricians, you name it, maybe even a little welding work. There’d be a lot of guys working there, making good money, every week. And paying taxes and buying beer after work. Instead, you have a big empty building doing no one any good. Even the dog inside seems hungry and pissed off.
So to anyone who has stopped this project, I say, stop screwing the blue collar worker with your academic garbage. Let us work in peace and let us make a living. You can paint your castles in the sky and tell us stories about factories coming here and a bunch of other baloney. And even though I’m not some smart lawyer, I know at the end of the day, you are just trying to line your own pockets. I don’t know how exactly, but I do know that’s why you’re preventing me and my buds from working. So let me work. Let my buddies work. Let the working class do what it does: work. We’re not interested in waiting for your factories or your industries or listening to whatever nonsense you’re selling.
The “Supreme Court” (I put this in parenthesis b/c this is actually the lowest court in NY) made a number of dubious rulings in this case. The court struck down the variance b/c it claimed the developer’s economic analysis did not prove economic hardship for each and every use of the building that is permitted by current zoning; the developer had shown economic hardship for only certain as of right uses. Now everyone knows that this would have been an idle exercise, since if you cannot make an economic return from using the building as, say a warehouse, you are not going to make it by using the building as a book depository (which is what it once was BTW).
Ask yourself the question: who benefits from tying up the project? Hint: the same people that are landbanking Brooklyn real estate. O’Connell (his partner is Douglas Durst) is the one pulling the strings and at one point promised to make the litigation go away. His demand? For the developers to sell the building to HIM (!) for 30 cents on the dollar. Can anyone spell extortion?
The reality is that the market will determine highest and best use of a particular property. The market wants housing. There are hundreds of families who need decent and clean place to live and who cannot afford the high pricing in more established neighborhoods. Any economics 101 student knows that when supply is artificially contrained, prices stay inflated. As a result of this litigation, supply of housing has been removed from the market. NY City has spent a million dollars on the appeals (if you did not know this, the litigation is betwen the Chamber of Commerce, an O’Connell straw, and the City of NY — the developer was never named in the suit). Yes, your tax payer dollars are being hijacked by O’Connell’s litigation! And the City has lost millions of dollars in real estate taxes that would have been generated in the past 3+ years; together with loss of approximately 1,000 construction JOBS. It’s a sad state of affairs b/c after burning up millions of dollars in carrying costs, the project is probably not viable any longer.
The only reason that O’Connell is advocating industrial use is b/c he had assembled his Red Hook holdings from the city at pennies on the dollar. By denying others the chance to make a viable economic return, he hopes to bleed them dry and displace other land owners from the landscape. He then has a chance to grab the remaining assets from the banks at depressed prices. Once he controls a critical mass of real estate, he gets to redevelop it. Prediction as to what that will be? Condos! O’Connell knows that housing generates more profit than industrial space (and I assure you he is a profit maximizer, despite his public persona to the contrary)
Hello, 5:47: the 3,997 jobs that I mentioned are in Red Hook only. When Bloomberg established the industrial business zones in 2005, there were 500,000 manufacturing and industrial businesses city wide. I understand that you may not think one business employing 8 people is significant, but when variances like the one that 161 Imlay Street tried to get are granted, it can easily cause a domino effect, resulting in the displacement of several businesses employing roughly 8 people. You can see how these numbers add up.
Hands down best discussion in months.
5:09, Thanks for a very informative post. I understand that it is important to keep these manufacturing jobs in Brooklyn, however I still believe that a building like 160 Imlay that is on the waterfront of New York city should not be used for manufacturing that has no use for the waterfront. We have to figure out a way to move non maritime manufacturing and industrial jobs away from the waterfront. The waterfront is just too valuable to the people of New York City who already have so little open air space.
Although Sunset Park is also on the waterfront it is a huge area that is almost entirely devoted to industrial and manufacturing sector. If the owner of 161 Imlay has buildings their as well, then they took a risk and lost and I’m sure they can live with that.
Red Hook, on the other hand has a very large residential community, one that is probably not interested in having concrete mixed in their backyard. It may be okay for the parents to work in a concrete mixing factory but it is not okay that this factory give their children asthma and shorten their lives.
I find it hard to believe that Sunset Park has a 1% vacancy rate. I quick drive around the neighborhood will turn up quite a few derelict unused buildings and properties.
Out of curiosity, why were you guys not there to stop the Ikea site from moving away from industrial use? This land certainly must have been valuable to an organization like yours.
Years ago I worked in the Brooklyn Army Terminal and it was an really interesting mix of industries which employed thousand of people. (I think it’s about 3000 people that work there these days.) Also, it appeared to be fully leased. So there is still a demand and not all industry has left the city. (But Sunset Park didn’t have much pressure for residential development on the water at that time.)
5.09 – I say this with all respect because I understand that we are speaking about peoples jobs and a way of life, but 3937 jobs is a very, very small portion of the Brooklyn economy. In addition, if we consider that this is within 455 businesses, it means the average business employs around 8 people. This is not exactly earth shattering stuff if you consider that Brooklyn has a population of 2.5 million and 415,000 commute into Manhattan every day. I hate to say that (to my eyes at least) your stats confirm that light industry in these parts of Brooklyn is a thing of the past.