Marty and Mayor Deal Death Blow to B'kln History

1) Anon 7:33, The Brooklyn Navy Yard Developmenr Corp (BNYDC)is actually a non-profit organization. That being said, it would be accurate to say that they are taking into account the profitability of any development alternative on the site? Why? It’s public land, right Anon 9:37? Well yes and no. BNYDC gets rent revenue from the industrial tenants in the Yard and uses that to operate, maintain and upgrade the Yard. It’s pretty expensive to maintain the yard, since the infrastructure is very old and it’s a waterfront environment, which is pretty harsh. Right now BNYDC collects enough money to cover their operating expenses, but not enough to cover their capital expenses. THe City gives them money for their capital budget. Look at City Hall’s press release about this event and you’ll see they mention that the City has given them $70 Million to upgrade the infrastructure in the past couple of years, and has committed to over $100 million more in the next several years. But at some point, the money from the city for infrastructure will stop flowing so BNYDC needs to start makin enough money from its existing assets to cover the huge capital costs. THat’s why this site can’t be a park or whatever Anon 9:37 wanted. ALso there is already a park with a pool, and a public school, across the street.

2) For those who have suggested that there’s enough room on the site for a supermaket and the houses, take a look at the Navy Yard’s master plan (they showed it on the NY1 peice for a couple of seconds and I paused it on Tivo to take a good look at it). It looks like they cut the 6-acre site in half into two rectagles. The 3 acre rectangle facing the street (where the houses currently are) is where they want to build the supermarket. On the 3 acres behind that it looks like they have planned a fairly big industrial building. Don’t know the exact size, but assuming the drawing is to scale, it appears to be around the same size as the supermarket. So you really have a choice there. Assuming the supermarket is a given, you could a supermarket and the houses, or the supermarket and a new industrial building. I know most of you yuppies would prefer the houses in that scenario because they’re pretty. But brooklyn really needs new industrial buildings where people can work alot more than it needs another 1870’s house converted into a cool place where you can buy coffee and look at pretty moldings.
3) Finally, the site is still not owned by the city – the feds still own it. It was approved for transfer to the city about a year ago, but that trasnfer still hasn’t happened. Some kind of federal beaurocracy that they have to go through. SO you can’t blame the City for the last year’s deterioration either. And that mile long blue tape sign inly went up about six months ago (and is down now) so don’t act like that guy has been doing something pro-active to save these houses for a long time. He’s as big of a reactinary as the rest of them.

So our choice is spend millions to repair some broke down houses so yuppies can pay 20 buck a head to look at them, or get a big box super store/super market so yuppies can shop and park their cars. HMMMMMM. How about a new high school, build some more public housing, get nike to open a sneaker factory, build a new public pool, a park. I mean this is “public land” isn’t it. Why does it have to make money. Why can’t it be used to build community.

If the city, or the Navy Yards for-profit administration, had one ounce of interest in trying to save these buildings they would have put out a RFP (request for proposals) in order to see what developers would save at least some portions of some of the facades of those buildings. The Fort Greene Association and the organization that represents the residents in the nearby Housing Projects joined forces to try to get this to happen. But thanks to David Yassky who did nothing to make this occur it couldn’t happen. I can’t remember the technicalities, but I believe because much of this development site/historical site falls in his district he would have had to stepped up at some point to try to save them — or at least get the city council to allow them to try to save the buildings. He was lobbied and he is against anything but full-on development. So folks remember this at election time! Ask your local candidates how they feel and more importantly, what they’ve done, about preservation issues; ie: Admiral’s Row and Atlantic Yards related issues.

Those of you who have suggested that since the redhook fairway and chelsea market re-used historic buildings to create food markets it could be done here are missing a big point. Both of those projects involved re-using large flexible warehouse structures, which work well for supermarkets. The buildings at Admirals row are 10 individual houses – each one about 3-5,000 SF. Not conducive to conversion into a supermarket at all.

Also, the Navy Yard has said repeatedly that they are not looking at whole foods and are targeting supermarket operators who would be appropriate given the surrounding neighborhood. The names that I’ve heard thrown arown (from reliable sources) are Pathmark, Stop and Shop, and Shopright.

And for the guy who wants to see it: Take the F to york Street. Make a right on York and go till the end. Make a right on Navy Street and go up up one block till the corner of Flushing Avenue.

Whole FOods? Sure rhe farragut houses folk can then stock up on Frois Gras?