‘Regina Myer Was Offered
President Job Six Months Ago’
By Sarah Ryley
Brooklyn Daily Eagle
BROOKLYN — Seven months has passed since Wendy Leventer was removed from her post as president of the Brooklyn Bridge Park Development Corporation, and little has happened since to advance the completion of the long-awaited but controversial waterfront park that would stretch from the Manhattan Bridge to Atlantic Avenue.
Construction hums along on Robert Levine’s One Brooklyn Bridge Park — the luxury condo conversion near Atlantic Avenue intended to help fund the park’s maintenance — while vacant sheds still cover the piers promised to become green space, and the 400,000-square-foot Empire Stores sits largely empty.
Regina Myer, former head of Brooklyn City Planning, was offered Leventer’s job six months ago, said a source involved with the project who asked not to be named. Several people, including Assemblywoman Joan Millman, confirmed Myer was the front runner. But the announcement of a new president, along with a construction timetable and developer for the Empire Stores, is stalled while the city and state wrangle over control of what would become Brooklyn’s first major park built since Prospect Park 135 years ago, said the source.
The lack of nearby parking is an issue for the Empire Stores, compounded by the fact that the one project that would create parking — Two Trees Management’s proposed Dock Street condominium — is tangled in community opposition, said the source. “If the Empire Stores is full of galleries, workshops, restaurants, retail — where’s the loading? Where’s the service streets? Where’s the parking?”
“The whole reason that nothing has happened in the last year is because the city and the state are pissing on each other,” said the source. “If this was all city property or this was all state property, we would be a hell of a lot further along than we are right now.”
Instead, the city and state jointly funded the park’s $153 million construction budget without deciding which entity would control the park once it’s built. But its $15.2 million annual maintenance budget would be funded by earmarked city taxes from high-rise housing within the park, a hotel, the Empire Stores and other retail — by far the most controversial aspect of the project.
“It’s whose turf? It’s who’s going to get the glory?” said the source. “The city realized that’s it’s paying all the maintenance because it’s foregoing property taxes.”
The Empire State Development Corporation, the state agency sponsoring the project, and the Mayor’s Office declined to comment on information in this report.
Claude Shostal of the Brooklyn Bridge Park Conservancy, which handles programming for the park, gave a tamer explanation for the delay. “I think [Mayor Michael Bloomberg] and [Gov. Eliot Spitzer] are thinking of legacy projects, and the question is, ‘who gets what?’” he said. “This is part of a much broader negotiation of who gets what piece of the legacy pie.”
More than two years ago, when the state announced how the park would be maintained, Shostal said ownership of the park was left undecided, mainly because it could potentially be a ‘political nightmare’ that would keep the plans from going forward. Now, the Conservancy, hoping to have a significant role in the park once it’s built, has “made a conscious decision that we will let [the city and state] work that out themselves. And we will be happy with whatever outcome,” said Shostal.
“We have visionary leadership, but not necessarily very politically nimble,” said Shostal. “But we have a new generation of leadership that, I think, will be a real benefit long-term for the city and the region, and it doesn’t bother me that much that these people are looking for credit.”
Millman acknowledged the negotiations between the city and state were delaying the project, and pointed out that it took a long time for the Senate to confirm Spitzer’s appointment of Patrick Foye as Downstate chairman of the Empire State Development Corporation. “You really need to have a point person, you really need to have a new and improved Wendy.”
One of the few aspects of the project to get off the ground early, originally, was the Empire Stores. Four years ago, developer Shaya Boymelgreen was awarded the contract to transform the Civil War-era warehouse into a shopping center, but it was rescinded three years later after he did nothing with it.
“One of the many things that people don’t understand is that the earth will not stop turning if Two Trees [Management] builds Dock Street,” the 18-story condominium many oppose, including Councilman David Yassky and Millman, because it would block views of the Brooklyn Bridge approach, said the source. “It is only that project which can create value in the Empire Stores because it makes parking available.”
Two Trees declined to comment on the matter.
“Two Trees knows that ultimately it would like to develop the Empire Stores, but it has to put the cars somewhere. No one wants to tackle the hard part — where do you put the cars?” said the source.
“That’s way down the road, and I think the park ought to happen first and then the whole discussion of what kind of use [would be in the Empire Stores] should take place,” Shostal said. “They’re very problematical, and the only way you’re going to make any money is to put in something highly inappropriate there, like destination retail, which would be highly inappropriate.”
“Two Trees, of course, has the most vested interest in the area and I can well imagine that they have scenarios for that location,” said Shostal. “We [the Conservancy] support things more of an arts and cultural nature. The problem is that they don’t make a lot of money.”
© Brooklyn Daily Eagle 2007
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