By Albert Amateau
The Hudson River Park Trust has begun the process of transforming Pier 57 on the Chelsea waterfront from a city bus depot to a cultural and educational center for the five-mile-long riverfront park currently under construction.
The Trust has issued a request for expressions of interest from potential developers and institutions for the 300,000-sq.-ft. Hudson River pier at W. 16th St., anticipating the bus depot’s leaving at the end of this year. Responses to the R.F.E.I. are due Jan. 20, 2004, but the Trust has the right to extend the deadline.
“I’m excited at the prospect of beginning the next step — another milestone — in the development of the park,” said Robert Balachandran, president and C.E.O. of the Trust, which is designing and building the park between Chambers and 59th Sts.
The Advisory Council of the Trust, comprised of representatives of community boards along the river, elected officials and members of the Trust board of directors, met on Mon. Sept 15 to discuss the future of what will be the third largest pier element of the park, after Pier 40 and the Gansevoort Peninsula.
“It’s a start of what will be a process that we hope will have a better resolution than Pier 40,” Lawrence B. Goldberg, a member of Community Board 2 and chairperson of the Advisory Council, said later, referring to the fact that selection of a developer for the 15-acre Pier 40 was put on hold in June when the Trust decided not to accept any of three short-listed developers. The Trust is currently developing interim uses for Pier 40.
Balachandran said on Tuesday there was no similarity between Pier 40 and Pier 57. Indeed, Advisory Council members who attended the Monday meeting noted that Pier 57 had fewer constraints than Pier 40, being only a quarter of the size, having no allowance for public parking and having a simpler configuration.
The Advisory Council has established a Pier 57 Task Force, to be headed by Edward C. Kirkland of Community Board 4, which covers Chelsea, and to include representatives from Community Board 2 in the Village and Community Board 1 in Lower Manhattan. “It’s a good solid group to lead the discussion of Pier 57,” Goldberg said.
Pam Frederick, head of the C.B.4 waterfront committee who attended the Monday Advisory Council meeting, said Community Board 4 would be very much against interim uses for Pier 57. “We’ve been burned too often by interim uses overstaying their time on the piers,” Frederick said. She cited the case of Basketball City on Pier 63, which is reluctant to vacate the pier before the end of 2004.
Connie Fishman, Trust vice president, told the Advisory Council on Monday that the goals of the R.F.E.I. are to find quality park-enhancing uses for a combination of cultural, educational and maritime recreation noncommercial and commercial uses. However, the request does not say how much of the pier should be allotted to commercial and noncommercial use.
The Trust will seek stable tenants to occupy, operate and maintain the pier. But the pier is not expected, like Pier 40 or like the entirely commercial Chelsea Piers — Piers 59, 60 and 61 — to generate revenue to support the entire park.
Advisory Council members said Fishman specifically noted that non-maritime recreation was not among the desired goals of the R.F.E.I. The emphasis was on finding unique cultural, educational or recreational maritime activities, goals set forth in the R.F.E.I. Museums, performance centers and the like were on the minds of Advisory Council members.
But maritime transportation uses were not among the goals, so a ferry terminal is not a prospect, although a stop for a water taxi might be. It was also made clear at the Monday meeting that a large retail store on Pier 57 was out of the picture.
“It’s positive that there is a task force to involve community people,” said Assemblymember Deborah Glick. “But our experience at Pier 40 showed us that the Trust was less than interested in community concerns,” added Glick, who attended the Advisory Council meeting. The Assemblymember, however, acknowledged that Pier 57 and Pier 40 were not analogous. Glick lauded the emphasis on cultural and educational uses for Pier 57 and the fact that the pier is not expected to be a cash cow for the park.
Fishman told the Advisory group that the Trust is negotiating with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority to provide some help to keep the pier from deteriorating after it removes the buses in January. The M.T.A. paid no rent for Pier 57 during the 20 years the agency used the pier for a bus depot. Moreover, the Trust spent what one source said was “several hundred thousand dollars” to paint Pier 57 two years ago while it was used as a bus depot.
The original Grace Line Pier between 15th and 16th Sts., Piers 57 burned on Sept. 29, 1947, in a fire that brought more than 200 firefighters to the $5 million pier. A new pier, supported by three giant concrete boxes instead of piles, replaced it.
Construction began in 1950 and was completed in February 1954 at a cost of $12 million.
