Next Steps Discussed for Pier 42 Re-Development

The tour of Pier 42 last Sunday was merely the tip of the proverbial iceberg. Re-development of the riverside park is now officially underway. Well, the early stages at least.

Mathews Nielsen, the landscape architect behind the massive undertaking, participated in a public planning meeting last night under the auspices of Community Board 3. The workshop of sorts was the first in a series of community engagement events designed to solicit input from Lower East Side residents regarding the master plan for the project.

Principal architect Signe Nielsen presented a quick PowerPoint discussing the area in question, including basic statistics and lessons learned from previous developers. The eight-acre parcel had been re-imagined by SHoP Architects and “A People’s Plan,” but there was an overall lack of support for each of those designs. During preliminary outreach, Nielsen learned that residents favor public parkland that has lots of open space, and is not primed for high-end clientele (i.e. sports complex, venues, restaurants). Early design ideas include softening the shoreline, a farmers market, building a “buffer” for the FDR, flower gardens, and fields.

Everything in the dotted line is fair game

One of the main issues, as was raised during the Pier 42 tour, is the infrastructure that carries the warehouse on its back. There are serious concerns about the stability of the piles and caps, and whether fix-up costs would be prohibitive.

After the brief walkthrough, the packed house split into breakout groups to brainstorm. Questionairres were distributed, posing questions like “what neighborhood park do you usually go to?” or “what do you not want in the new park at Pier 42?”

The next indoors outreach is slated for November 28. Mathews Nielsen hopes to have a master plan to work with sometime in late-March 2013.

So, we put it to you - what neighborhood park do you usually go to, and what do you not want in the new park at Pier 42?