Industry City gives up their land grab

 

THE CITY

 The developers behind Industry City’s massive rezoning proposal threw in the towel Tuesday night on plans to expand the Sunset Park waterfront complex, hours after four Brooklyn members of Congress joined the opposition.

The formal withdrawal, though, was unlikely to be the last word on the issue, just as the successful push to scuttle the proposed Amazon headquarters in Long Island City last year continues to roil discussions over competing visions of New York’s future.

“It is clear that the current political environment and a lack of leadership precludes a path forward for our rezoning proposal,” Industry City CEO Andrew Kimball said in a statement late Tuesday.

 The sudden scrapping of the proposal marked a victory for opponents, who said the plan for a larger mixed-used complex would hasten gentrification in the working-class neighborhood and nix any hopes of a return of large-scale manufacturing.

“The question isn’t about hamstringing development and, in fact, Industry City can create jobs, right now, without any rezoning,” Rep. Nydia Velázquez, who represents Sunset Park, told THE CITY hours before Kimball’s team pulled the plug. The news was first reported by Politico New York.

Supporters pointed to the thousands of jobs and $100 million dollars in tax revenue the project was touted to bring at a time when the city is grappling with the devastating fallout wrought by the pandemic.

Cuomo to propose subway to Red Hook

From NBC:

Gov. Andrew Cuomo plans to ask the MTA to explore the creation of a new subway connecting Red Hook and Manhattan in his state of the state address Wednesday.

Cuomo will call on the Port Authority to relocate its maritime shipping activities at Red Hook to the South Brooklyn Marine Terminal in Sunset Park so that the Red Hook waterfront can be freed up for "more productive community use," he said in a press release.

He's also asking the MTA to study options for improving transportation access to Red Hook and other nearby neighborhoods, including potentially extending subway service from lower Manhattan to a new station in Red Hook through an underwater tunnel.

Typically, a new subway tunnel would take years to build and cost billions.

BQX would hinder BQE reconstruction

From the Times Ledger:

Transit honchos in charge of fixing the dilapidated Brooklyn–Queens Expressway want the mayor to hit the breaks on his controversial $2.5-billion streetcar plan because the two massive infrastructure projects will butt heads.

The Department of Transportation must repair the 1.5-mile stretch of the decrepit roadway between Atlantic Avenue and Sands Street in Brooklyn Heights before the triple cantilever — which runs beneath the neighborhood’s promenade and above Furman Street — crumbles beneath the weight of the thousands of big-rigs that rumble across it daily.

But Hizzoner’s plan to lay 14 miles of light-rail tracks from Sunset Park to the outer borough of Queens that would run along streets in Red Hook, Fort Greene, Dumbo, and Brooklyn Heights, including on Atlantic Avenue, will impact the city’s work on the expressway and cause even more chaos on the local thoroughfares, according to the city’s Deputy Commissioner of Bridges.

“I had a conversation with somebody who was working on the BQX. They are thinking about it going down Atlantic Avenue and across Columbia [Street], and I said ‘Look we’re going to be there, I don’t think it’s a good idea,’ ” Bob Collyer said during a public meeting about repairs to the expressway’s triple cantilever on Dec. 11. “That’s as far as we got.”