The far West Side from Hells Kitchen through Hudson Yards has, to put it mildly, an unfinished feel.
The new Hudson River Park is much further along to both the north and south, while plans to develop the western half of the Hudson rail yard have lain dormant since the real estate crash of 2009.
“The landscape in Hudson River Park between W29th and W46th Streets that bridges Hudson Yards and Hell’s Kitchen has appeared desolate,” Dashiell Allen wrote on the W42ST.nyc blog the other day, “with largely undeveloped walkways broken up by the occasional tree and flower in a planter.”
But now the question of what to do with this vital space is the subject of renewed debate on two fronts.
The Hudson River Park Trust, keeper of the four-mile long park, informed Community Board four that it has begun planning for the improvement of the stretch of park from the Heliport to the Intrepid and has set aside $65 million for the work.
Meantime, Related Companies says it wants to replace its 2009 plan for developing the western end of Hudson Yards with a new $10 billion proposal for a casino and resort.
This being New York, neither plan has been greeted with unmitigated hurrahs.
“This is penny wise and pound foolish,” a longtime critic of the Hudson River Park Trust, Tom Fox, said of its announcement. “Let’s not deal with chump change. Let’s really design the section of the park as it should be designed and stop kicking the can down the road.”
He said that a comprehensive plan for this “missing piece” of the Hudson River Park should include a pedestrian bridge across route 9A (the West Side Highway, to most New Yorkers) at the Convention Center, robust flood resiliency against rising tides in the river and the removal of bus parking in that stretch of the park and of the heliport, long a bane to users of the park.
“This should be an opportunity to step back and think about this unfinished segment of the park more comprehensively,” said Fox, author of a history of the Hudson River Park. He noted that beyond the $65 million in local funds, there are substantial federal infrastructure funds available for both climate resiliency and construction related to the highway.
“I don’t think we have the luxury of doing piecemeal planning and should be looking at this whole issue. Much more comprehensively,” Fox said.
For its part, the Park Trust told Community Board Four it was in the early stages of planning, and was mainly seeking to introduce the planning team to the community. They said they had hired the architectural firm, Marvel Designs, to begin planning the new stretch of park.
Marvel has worked on several projects in New York, including the Battery Maritime Building to the south of the Hudson River Park and St Ann’s Warehouse Theater in Brooklyn.
The Park Trust said the $65 million for building these 17 blocks of the park would include state and local funds as well as revenue from development in the park. Governor Hochul signed legislation the other day approving private development on half of Pier 76, the former city tow pound, while preserving the other half for the park. The site is immediately across from The Javits Center.
The plan for pier 76 will be developed separately, Park officials said, but the area between the pier and the West Side Highway is included in the planning process getting underway.
Fox has argued for years that development in the park is unnecessary and inappropriate, and that the park should be funded by a fee on real estate across the West Side Highway, which has boomed in value because of the Hudson River and High Line parks.
This idea, he suggested, should get a new look as debate proceeds on what is by far the largest development opportunity along the west side, the future of the western half of Hudson Yards.
The city 15 years ago approved a development plan for west Hudson Yards that was heavy with residential housing. But the developer, Related Properties, has never proceeded with that plan and recently asked to set it aside in favor of building a casino and hotel tower, one of eleven proposals in and around New York City seeking to win one of the three downstate casino licenses to be approved by the legislature
The Hudson Yards Casino proposal has drawn stiff opposition from the non-profit which run the High Line, the park on an old railroad that wraps around the western edge of the Hudson rail yards
To resist the casino plan, The High Line has just launched a Protect the High Line at the Rail Yards campaign.
“The western railyard was contemplated as a counterpoint to the eastern rail yard,” said Preeti Sodhi, the High Lines senior director of community and government relations. “Where the eastern rail yard is largely commercial and retail, the western rail yards proposed over 3,500 residential units, a school and some commercial space at the northern end of the development.”
While the 2009 plan meshed with the High Line, Sodhi told Community Board 4, that the new plan would be “a significant change to both the use and scale and type of buildings. In addition the use has flipped from mainly residential to mainly commercial and includes an open space layout that is significantly altered. The development plan would gravely threaten the visitor experience on the northern most stretch of the High Line and have profound effects on our entire community.”
She described the casino plan, undertaken with Wynn, as “a giant podium bigger than six Costco warehouses that will overwhelm the High Line and reduce the amount of housing.”
The state says it will make a decision next year on who gets the three casino licenses.
