You Could Get 70 Cents From Con Ed Sale To Brooklyn Bridge Park

By on January 11, 2013 10:37 pm in brooklyn bridge park, DUMBO

Con Ed is seeking permission from the New York State Public Service Commission, which regulates utilities, to transfer a parcel of land, dark green in the map above, to the Brooklyn Bridge Park Park Corporation. It will constitute the northernmost portion of Brooklyn Bridge Park, and the Park Corporation is seeking proposals to build a high rise residential building on a portion of the Con Ed land in order to help defray park expenses. According to the New York Times City Room Blog, Con Ed has promised to give a little more than half of the profit it gets from the sale to its customers, which amounts to a little more than seventy cents per customer.

The Times piece notes that this portion of the Park will include “a 13,000-square-foot lawn with a commanding view of the Manhattan Bridge and the city skyline.”

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  • Jack Simmons

    Psssst…

    Want to buy part of the Brooklyn Bridge?

  • 5thfloorwalkuper

    And the high-rise residential building occupants will have a lovely view of the Con Ed electrical generating equipment – surely an enticement to build there.

  • David on Middagh

    Seventy cents, eh? I’d rather be entered in a lottery to be one of ten customers to each receive a tenth of the $4.5M distribution.

  • maestro

    Here, here, D on Middagh!

  • Withering Heights

    Figures the transfer of the parcel of land already has the hands of the real estate developers all over it. Gotta figure Walentas’s proposal is already finalized. Otherwise, it is great to know this parcel will become available to the BBP, and we look forward to its rapid deployment.

  • stuart

    hopefully the larger parcel to the north with the con ed equipment will be the next addition to the park.
    certainly not a good idea to locate a field of electric transformers and switches a few feet above water level. time to move that equipment out of there.

  • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UlsiLOnWCoI Arch Stanton

    Stuart, Congratulations you have just shown what a complete ignorant moron you are.

  • yikes

    Let’s see – Regina Myer will spend $9 million for land we all thought was already part of the park (note: see park designs going back at least 10 years and elected official ribbon cuttings for the prior 20), then Myer will sell this land to a real estate developer to build a high rise on it so that the city can get PILOT payments to pay for the park? Why not use the $9 million to build an honest to goodness pool and just let Con Ed sell their land to the highest bidder. The city will still get taxes from the luxury condos that are developed there and the city can use those tax dollars for anything they want – put them toward the park (or for schools, or for whatever). And we will still have $9 million to spend on a pool (which by the way is still not part of this “park” nor will it ever be) plus the tax revenue to pay for this explosively expensive non-park. Senator Squadron was a damned fool for giving up his veto over luxury housing inside this park and this is proof positive that he got snookered real bad. What a jerk.

  • Booboobear

    yikes is right

  • sue

    Squadron knew exactly what he was doing… Being a lap dog and buddy of the mayor and trying to advance his career. He is going to run for public advocate… His constituents be damned

  • Not really

    @Yikes – so little of what you wrote is actually true it’s amazing.

    First, there is a pool in the park – it opened last July and will be there for at least another 4 years.

    Next – the vast majority of the land on this new parcel is going to be new park land. Only about 10,000 SF will be a development site.
    Third – just because you all thought it was part of the park already, doesn’t mean it actually was. Yes it was always the plan to include this privately owned parcel in the park, and this how you make those plans an actuality – by buying this piece of property so that it can be incorporated.

    And finally – the revenues from this development will include ground rent and taxes. In total those fees will cover the cost to acquire, the cost to maintain this portion of the Park with some left over to cover the maintenance costs of other sections of the park. So this will be new revenue generator, not a $9 million expense like you are trying to make it. THis site was always in the plans as a development site.

    And what’s up with the personal attacks on Regina? What’s she done to you other than building a world class park in your neighborohood?

  • Anon

    “Not Really” :
    1. Pool is not permanent, holds about 60 people in a borough of over 2 million. At 3/12 feet deep, bout 30×50 feet, it is for wading not swimming. It will be there for 4 summers – that’s all. “Yikes” appears to be right – it is not an “honest to goodness” pool, but, as someone once called it, a puddle. Seems to be.
    2. This lot that Squadron gave away for condot development, administered by the Park’s Myer, will have a 13 story building on it and people will have circumvent a highrise to get access to the water, so really, what are you really talking about? To say that “the majority of land goes to the park” is just not true.
    3. Myer is the tool of Bloomberg in his quest to remake NY for tourists and the wealthiest. Most decent folks believe that tax revenues, including the 1% who are planning to live inside a public park, should go to support all city services not green up the lawns in front of the privledged few – no matter how gracious they are in letting the rest of you use this lawn for some hours a day.While their taxes are kept to protect this park, your taxes and others in the city will have to work that much harder to pay for police, fire, schools and all the other stuff everyone will use. Something inherently wrong with this tax scheme for the wealthiest.
    4. If Con Ed sells the land, a building it will be a new tax generator and the park will still be able to keep the $9 million to make it work for everyone in the form of a pool or whatever else people need inside a park. 99.99% of them won’t be using the condos, that is something I think we can all agree upon.
    5. the people of New York built this park not Ms. Myer. Don’t feel sorry for her. She is a paid bureaucrat tasked with using tax dollars and she is not accountable to anyone except the Mayor and his hand chosen board that seems to rubber stamp this park plan. Public authorities should be banned because there is no accountability. Myer seems to be among the most arrogant from what I read – nothing more or less than that.

    For the record, I can’t speak for other writers but I don’t live in the neighborhood so I look at this as it appears to the rest of the world.

  • Not really

    1)I have many friends who spent many wonderful afternoons this past summer relaxing and cooling off at the pool. They have told me that they can’t wait to go back next summer. I will go and tell them that they weren’t actually at a pool. They will be very surprised.

    2)Regina is accountable to the mayor. The mayor is duly elected by the citizens of the City.Do you think that every position in city government needs to be directly elected? This is not ancient greece. That would make for a very long ballot on election day

    Actually, it’s exactly true that the majority of the lot will be park. To be exact, the parcel is about 3 acres. Of that about half is “land under water”. The other 1.5 acres is above ground. The development parcel is about 9,000 SF. That computes to about 15% of the above ground portion of the parcel. I’m no mathematician, but I’m pretty sure that 85% equals “more than half” by a long shot.

    You say that you’ve don’t live in the neighborhood and clearly don’t know the site that well. Maybe you should not comment on things you clearly know nothing about.

  • Mr. Crusty

    @anon you really don’t know what you are talking about do you?

  • Mr. Crusty

    @Anon says “To say that “the majority of land goes to the park” is just not true.”

    Reality: All in all, the development program occupies approximately 8 acres of the project site, or less than 10% of the total land area. Currently, the park is generating operation and maintenance funds from One Brooklyn Bridge Park. The remaining development sites will be developed in phases as construction of the park continues and additional operation and maintenance funds are required.

    http://www.brooklynbridgepark.org/progress/project-development

    Also, to blame Regina Meyer is really baseless. Again for those completely clueless here is a bit of the history.

    “Brooklyn Bridge Park operates under a mandate to be financially self sustaining. This mandate was memorialized in the Memorandum of Understanding signed by Governor George Pataki and Mayor Michael Bloomberg in 2002 that created Brooklyn Bridge Park. While a small fraction of the required operations and maintenance funds for the park will be collected from concessions located throughout the park, the majority of the funds will come from a limited number of revenue-generating development sites within the project’s footprint. The development program was determined after an in-depth analysis of the potential development types and locations. The analysis focused on finding uses that would (1) generate sufficient revenue to support park operations, (2) minimize the size of the required development footprint, and (3) be compatible with the surrounding park and neighborhood uses. Development locations were chosen to (1) take advantage of the existing urban context by concentrating development on the city side of the site, particularly around the park entrances (2) maintain the protected view corridor from the Brooklyn Heights Promenade, and (3) create vital, active urban junctions at each of the park’s three main entrances.”

  • Cranberry Beret

    Pay no attention to “anon” and the other trolls. They’d rather rehash 20-year-old arguments about getting the park off the drawing board than enjoying the park that’s actually getting built.

  • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UlsiLOnWCoI Arch Stanton

    anon is right about one thing, the “pool” is a pathetic joke.

  • sue

    it is not a pool its a big bathtub

  • sue

    it is not a pool its a big bathtub. You cannot do laps. It is a joke

  • Wiley E.

    Does anyone want to give Bloomberg another term via proxy? Be careful how you vote. Can a mayor be impeached? And jailed for his actions? He might have bought all the judges, but not all the voters next time.

  • Cranberry Beret

    Just because gramps and granny can’t do their laps, doesn’t mean it’s not a pool. The non-geritol set enjoyed it just fine. I fully agree that an Olympic sized pool would be awesome, but please, just because you don’t enjoy a particular amenity doesn’t mean it’s a failure or joke. I couldn’t care less about the sand volleyball courts but I don’t go around complaining pier 6 is a joke of a beach.

  • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UlsiLOnWCoI Arch Stanton

    Cranberry Beret, the “joke” it that the BBP fronts it as a full blown public pool when it is nothing more than a kiddie pool. The pool at my second home in the Catskills is larger. On the other hand, the volleyball courts are a no nonsense full featured facility. It is a flawed comparison.

  • Perspective

    @Arch Stanton – except, of course that they don’t do that all. In several interviews quoted all over the place when the pool opened, BBP was pretty clear about the size of the pool and that it was intended as a kiddie pool.

  • Sunflower

    Is there some website that lists what the Corporation is buying from Con Edison. Are they buying both the 1.5 acres and the 1.5 underwater acreage?

    I would like to add that the whole PILOT self-financing scheme is definitely a robbing Peter to pay Paul scenario. The park is not self-financing as required by the Memorandum of Understanding, because the condo owners will not pay City taxes, which pays for police and fire protection, or for the schools that they are sending their kids to. If it was truly self- financing, then the owners would also pay City taxes, and then pay a luxury tax to the park for the privilege of living in a park and having their world-class views. Its like paying for an association and club fee to live next to a golf course. Why should you or I have to cover the condo owners fair share of City taxes, so that they have the privilege of living in the park.

  • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UlsiLOnWCoI Arch Stanton

    Ok the Joke is the whole “park” that is supposed to be for the public but is in reality is a sham to usurp public land into the hands of developers. Yes it does/will have some nice amenities but by in large the public will be shortchanged, just wait and see.

  • stuart

    Arch Stanton, you are a jackass

  • Mr. Crusty

    It is amazing how consistently wrong Arch can be. Quite a talent.

  • Wiley E.

    Hey, Arch. k-stuart thinks we are the same. Maybe he is pissed that we both see him for what he really is. A narrow minded, selfish real estate $hill.

    Bloomberg hijacked 300 million city and state tax payer dollars for a commercial real estate project with no community accountability or oversight. The condo residents take services, but do not pay community taxes.

    We are jackasses. No more condos!

  • David on Middagh

    Sunflower wrote:

    “I would like to add that the whole PILOT self-financing scheme is definitely a robbing Peter to pay Paul scenario. The park is not self-financing as required by the Memorandum of Understanding, because the condo owners will not pay City taxes, which pays for police and fire protection, or for the schools that they are sending their kids to. If it was truly self- financing, then the owners would also pay City taxes, and then pay a luxury tax to the park for the privilege of living in a park and having their world-class views.”

    This has the ring of truth. I would be surprised if anyone had a rebuttal other than “This is the way we are creating a park.”

  • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UlsiLOnWCoI Arch Stanton

    Dear Stuart, thanks, coming from you that is a complement.

    Dear Mr. Crusty, How so? I’ll take the Coke Pepsi challenge with you anytime.

    Sunflower, Exactly. Thank you for a more detailed truth.

    Wiley E., Agreed, Stuart is very transparent, a quite loathsome character in my opinion.
    As for Bloomberg, it is no wonder, his net worth wen up from $4 billion when he took office in 2002 to $25 billion in 2012. Indeed we are the jackasses.

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