Submitted by Benjamin Hemric, Feb 21, 2008 20:57

Thank you for this very informative and interesting article! I hope future articles on this subject will also address the following two issues:

1) If I remember correctly, Pier 17 was built by the city (using a federal grant, I believe) in the early 1980s as a BRAND NEW pier (even the pilings were brand new). Is this the pier that supposedly has to undergo costly repairs? If so, why? Was the work done poorly in the first place?; was the structure poorly maintained by the leasee?; or is this just a result of normal aging?

Frankly, given the fact that the corporation leasing the complex is now also seeking to "update" the complex and drastically change it (i.e., build an large office building), it sounds like the "need" for repairs is little more than an excuse for the leasee to switch to a use that is far more profitable to them, but less useful (and profitable) for the city -- and at taxpayers' expense yet!

New York has plenty of 50-story office buildings -- but nothing else even remotely like the wonderful Pier 17. Rather than facilitating and paying for a conversion of this unique in New York facility into something very different (and common), It seems to me we should be aiming to revitalize what was originally built -- and finding a different leasee if the current leasee doesn't want the job.

2) While the South St. Seaport is located, of course, in Community Board One, it is also a city-wide resource. Would it really be in the best interest of the city as a whole to allow such a resource to be traded in for something like a local community center should the developer get the local community board to agree to a sufficiently short -- in the community board's eyes -- skyscraper?

This is meant to raise a general policy issue about parochial control of a city-wide resource -- and is not directly solely at Community Board One (which of course should, indeed, be expressing its own ideas about the site).

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