North Cove Marina.
BY DUSICA SUE MALESEVIC | Brookfield Office Properties and their partners unveiled plans for a shortened season at North Cove Marina Tuesday night — and reverberations from the former operator’s ousting were felt.
David Cheikin, senior vice president of leasing for Brookfield Office Properties, introduced the partners who will run the marina as well as the sailing school and club at Community Board 1’s Battery Park City Committee meeting May 5. Island Global Yachting will manage marina operations and Offshore Sailing School is in charge of the school and club. The marina is slated to open May 21.
Brookfield and I.G.Y. were named the marina’s operator at Battery Park City Authority’s January meeting, much to the consternation of many in the community, who backed Michael Fortenbaugh. Fortenbaugh had run a popular sailing school for kids for 20 years and had run the marina for 10.
Doris Colgate runs Offshore with her husband, Steve. The school, which was brought in after the bid was awarded, has been in business for over 50 years and has won a slew of awards.
Colgate said that there will be a sailing club, corporate and charity events and regattas. The youth sailing program will run June 22 through Aug. 10.
As of now, Offshore will have seven boats at the marina and 12 next season, she said. With 12 boats, it is possible to accommodate up to 300 children. There will be two sessions each day Monday through Friday. If a child does both sessions everyday, it will cost around $600. Fifty percent of spaces will be scholarships for at-risk and underprivileged kids, she said.
When asked why there’ll only be seven boats this year, Colgate said, “We are limited by the agreement. They want to bring, rightfully so, the larger boats on the other three docks.”
“To the authority, it’s what we feared, why we didn’t want you to do this and it’s outrageous. Your program sounds great, but there used to be more boats than you could count and you’re talking about seven,” said Jeffrey Mihok, committee member. “Even the vendor you brought in is clearly annoyed by that.”
“I don’t think that’s fair,” said Cheikin, who said there’s half the number of docks in the marina because Fortenbaugh took them.
Pile remediation on the south end of the marina is also a factor. That work will be done from July to October.
There are 16 berths available and some may go to historic boats, said Simon Bryan, who is part of I.G.Y. and will be the manager of North Cove Marina.
“It doesn’t leave us much capacity for visiting boats,” Bryan said.
Cheikin said they like idea of party ships, although those boats “clearly will not be able to dominate” the marina.
“From our perspective what we like about it is — it brings people through the retail several times a day,” he said.
Tammy Meltzer, a committee member, said the community “has spoken quite loudly that North Cove Marina was not a great location for neither ferries or large party boats because there is extraordinary noise and sound that carries both north and south.”
Mihok said, “The community is fairly O.C.D. about not wanting party boats docking there.”
The future of the historic schooners Shearwater and the Ventura docking at the marina is also not clear as Brookfield Properties and the B.P.C.A. have yet to sign the contract.
When asked why — when the bid was awarded in January — neither Cheikin or the authority’s Robin Forst and Kevin McCabe would comment.
