Proposals due May 21, 2007. The New York City Economic Development Corporation issued a request for proposals on March 26, 2007 seeking developers to purchase and redevelop 130,000 sq.ft. of the Bush Terminal complex, located in Sunset Park, Brooklyn. The site, bound by 43rd and 47th Streets on the north and south and the 51st Street Rail Yard and Bush Terminal Piers on the east and west, contains three buildings totaling 37,100 sq.ft. Four tenants on month-by-month leases currently occupy the buildings. EDC anticipates proposals will seek to demolish the buildings.

The site is located in an M3-1 zoning district, allowing heavy manufacturing, and is also in a waterfront area, imposing additional limitations on development. The RFP requests plans for industrial uses to support the goals of the Bloomberg administration’s Industrial Business Zones. 3 CityLand 133 (Oct. 15, 2006).

Current City projects in the area include redevelopment of the nearby South Brooklyn Marine Terminal and plans to establish Bush Terminal Piers Open Space, an 18- acre park to be located just southwest of the site. (more…)

Court rules TransGas Energy’s condemnation is premature. TransGas Energy Systems proposed to construct a power plant along the East River waterfront in Williamsburg. It spent $1.5 million in March 2001 on an option to purchase the site, and, in 2002, filed for approval from the state Siting Board.

At Siting Board hearings, the City opposed the plan, testifying that it planned to rezone the entire Williamsburg neighborhood and create a waterfront park. In 2004, the Siting Board denied the proposal and TransGas immediately filed a new application proposing to move the plant below ground to allow park space above. Thereafter in May 2005, while TransGas’s second proposal waited for a decision, the City rezoned north Brooklyn, which included Planning Commission approval of plans to acquire the site for a waterfront park. (more…)

Manhattan’s first green roof, installed in 1998, sits on top of the 1902 Georgian townhouse at 122 East 38th Street in Murray Hill, the home of Earth Pledge, a New York based nonprofit that promotes green building technologies. Founded by Theodore Kheel to support the 1992 United Nations Earth Summit in Rio, Earth Pledge now sponsors the Greening Gotham program, an initiative to get New York City developers, building owners, and government officials behind green roof installation. Leslie Hoffman, Earth Pledge’s Executive Director, spoke with CityLand about the city’s standing, its policy and turning affordable housing green.

Why Green. Hoffman began as a minimum wage carpenter in Maine, became a general contractor and moved on to design green building projects. She holds a degree in Architecture and Design from Colorado College, has co-authored green technology books and even runs an organic coffee farm. Hoffman explained that green roofs are fundamentally lightweight, engineered systems of insulation, drainage, soil, and vegetation constructed on top of a traditional roof. It’s an “an elegant solution to common urban problems,” Hoffman declared, listing green roofs’ ability to boost insulation, cool buildings, reduce energy use by 10 to 30 percent, lower area air temperature, absorb 80 percent of storm water lessening runoff, and protect the roof from weather cycles and UV rays. Installation adds about $10 per square foot, but Hoffman points out that a green roof can last for 50 years where traditional roofs need replacement after only 15. The Greening Gotham program envisions a network of green roofs stretching across the city’s skyline, which advocates and researchers believe could diminish the “urban heat island effect,” a term used to describe the fact that the city is 3 to 6 degrees hotter on summer days than its surrounding suburbs. (more…)

School to address increased capacity. On July 27, 2005, the City Council approved a proposal by the New York City School Construction Authority for the construction of a 62,000-square-foot primary/intermediate school in the Canarsie section of Brooklyn. The project site consists of two privately owned parcels located on East 107th Street, between Flatlands and Avenue J. The first parcel is 17,000 sq.ft and contains a vacant two-story building previously used as a Yeshiva; the second is a 2,000-square-foot paved parcel formerly used as a parking lot and play area.

The school will provide additional student capacity by offering 500 new seats of pre-kindergarten through eighth grade classrooms, special education facilities, gymnasium, auditorium, library, administrative space, and cafeteria. The construction of the school will meet Community School District 18’s projected goals of additional capacity at the primary and intermediate levels and reduced class size. (more…)

Affordable housing incentives, as well as height, massing and manufacturing zones, revised before approval. Over the disapproval votes of Commissioners Karen Phillips and Dolly Williams, the remaining members of the Planning Commission approved the rezoning of a two-mile area along the East River waterfront in Brooklyn’s Greenpoint and Williamsburg neighborhoods after modifications were crafted to address public officials and residents’ comments.

The six linked applications, including text, map and City map amendments to create park land, will rezone 183 diverse blocks of two Brooklyn neighborhoods that have seen significant population growth, development and numerous illegal conversions over the past decade that have increased the disparity between the existing uses and the current zoning. (more…)