By Albert Amateau
Waterfront community groups and elected officials are asking critical questions about Chelsea Piers Management’s lease from New York State of its popular sports and entertainment venue which, after 10 years, comes up for renewal next year.
While many comments paid tribute to Chelsea Piers’ transformation of four derelict piers into a successful enterprise, some officials and community groups have asked the Hudson River Park Trust, the state agency with jurisdiction over Piers 59, 60, 61 and 62, to look into what they say are encroachments on public space.
The Trust is planning and building the five-mile-long waterfront park between Chambers and 59th Sts., and derives much of its operating revenue from the Chelsea Piers lease, though most comes from Pier 40 at W. Houston St.
Roland Betts, a friend of Governor Pataki and a Yale classmate of President Bush and former co-owner with the president of the Texas Rangers baseball club, is a partner in Chelsea Piers Management.
David Tewksbury, vice president for operations of the sports and entertainment complex, said last week that he was confident the lease would be renewed for another 10 years.
“We are in total compliance with the lease, and we’ve received 30 or 40 letters supporting us from schools, senior centers and sports groups including the New York Gay Hockey Association and the Fresh Air Fund,” Tewksbury said.
Nevertheless, Assemblymember Richard Gottfried, Community Board 4, the Hudson River Park Trust Advisory Council and the Chelsea Waterside Park Association want some issues of Chelsea Piers Management’s operation to be cleared up.
“The sign on the north side of Pier 61 was the thing we discussed most,” said John Doswell, co-chairperson of the Community Board 4 waterfront committee. “We were opposed to it from the beginning and we tried to get them to tone it down. It’s an intrusion on the Chelsea Waterside Park,” Doswell said, referring to the electronic sign visible for many blocks north of 23rd St., where a new park area was completed two years ago on the east side of Route 9A and where park space is to be built on the west side of the highway.
Doswell said that Chelsea Piers had agreed informally that when the park west of the highway is completed, the sign would be removed. The community board, however, wants the Trust to make a formal agreement part of the condition of renewal.
The community board also wants the Trust to clarify Chelsea Piers’ claim that it has jurisdiction over the waters on the north and south sides and on the west end of Pier 62.
“We’ve read the lease and it seems that Chelsea Piers does have the water rights, but we want the Trust to clarify what access rights Chelsea Piers will have to those waters after Pier 62 becomes part of the Hudson River Park. People want the end of the pier to be free of boats to preserve a view of the river,” Doswell said.
Gottfried, who co-wrote the 1997 Hudson River Park Act that created the five-mile-long riverfront park, said in his comments that one aim of the legislation “is to preserve open space and water and to allow as little human-made intrusion as possible into the water. It is critical that this policy be made unambiguously clear to Chelsea Piers.”
Larry Goldberg, a member of the Community Board 2 waterfront committee and current president of the Hudson River Park Trust Advisory Council, agreed that the sign on the north side of Pier 61 was an issue for the Advisory Council.
“We are also concerned that Chelsea Piers allowed a Target store barge to dock at Pier 62 last Christmas,” said Goldberg, whose concerns over commercialization of a pier that is slated eventually to become public space was shared by Robert S. Trentlyon, a member of Community Board 4 and president of the Chelsea Waterside Park Association.
“In the past two years, Pier 62 has become a battleground for non-park uses,” said Trentlyon, who also criticized the Target discount store use of the pier. “If it could work at Christmas, why couldn’t it develop into using the pier for every conceivable sale during the year?” he asked.
Noise from fireworks ordered for private catered events on Pier 61 is another issue that upsets Chelsea Piers’ neighbors. “While we understand that these fireworks are booked directly by event planners and are not provided by Chelsea Piers, we believe that the management, with some help from the Trust, can exert influence in discouraging these displays,” the Community Board 4 commentary says.
The problem of fireworks has lessened recently but complaints still come in, according to Board 4. The board also wants the walkway just south of Pier 59, where the Chelsea Brewery pub and restaurant is a subtenant of Chelsea Piers, to be clearly identified as public. “This is a matter of better control over table placement and better signage so that pedestrians attempting to walk through or sit in the area will clearly understand they have a right to do so without feeling they are trespassing on private property,” the board says.
Gottfried’s comments recapped some of the community’s objections to the initial construction of Chelsea Piers, such as when public space in front of the piers’ head houses was turned into a two-way service road, causing the buffer area between the bikeway and highway to be reduced from nine ft. to 2.5 ft. and the removal of 15 ft. from Thomas F. Smith Park, east of the highway.
Gottfried, whose comments include several instances since 1995 of Chelsea Piers Management expanding into public space, said, “It is incumbent upon the Trust — a government agency created to protect the public interest and the Park — to take full advantage of the evaluation and consideration of whether to renew the Chelsea Piers tenancy.”
Chris Martin, spokesperson for the Trust, said last week that all the comments would be evaluated and used in making a decision on the renewal, which is due in June 2004.
The original lease in 1994 was for 20 years with renewal options in the 10th and 20th years. In 1995, Betts and his partner, Tom Bernstein, convinced the state to extend the lease to 49 years, with renewal options every 10 years, so that banks would be more willing to finance the enterprise.
