Crucial Governors Island Funding Test Approaches
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The effort to secure support for long-term funding for a city and state initiative to develop Governors Island will likely face a test in coming months, as a more cohesive plan for the island comes into view.
The 172-acre former military base, just off the southern tip of Manhattan, will require a substantial public investment to create parkland, Deputy Mayor Daniel Doctoroff said at a meeting of the island’s oversight agency yesterday. The agency is in the process of selecting a team to design a destination park on the island.
“Where we’ve spent most of the time recently is looking at the capital cost for the park itself,” Mr. Doctoroff said. “Those costs will run into the many hundreds of millions.”
The Bloomberg administration has shown a strong commitment to the island’s redevelopment, which has been a relatively slow-moving process given that it was transferred to the city from the federal government in 2003.
However, the city’s outspoken public support for the project has not, thus far, been matched by the Spitzer administration, advocates for the island say, leaving unclear whether the state will match the city’s strong desire to fund the initiative.
“It’s clear that the mayor has put a lot of time and effort into it and has expressed the capital dollars that are needed,” the director of the Governors Island Alliance, Robert Pirani, said. “It’s our hope that the state will recognize the island as an opportunity.”
To date, the state has put tens of millions of dollars into the project, but at a level slightly lower than that of the city. The next budgeting cycle for the city and state will be a crucial test for the island, advocates say. Should the island fail to receive a long-term funding commitment before Mr. Bloomberg leaves office, momentum could easily be lost.
Mr. Doctoroff said the city and state are talking with numerous possible tenants that could comprise the mixed-use portion of the island, including New York University and a health think tank sponsored by Mayor Bloomberg, who last week stated his interest in funding such a project.
