As Ikea gears up to submit its application to build a mammoth home furnishings store on the Red Hook waterfront, an all-out public relations war has been mounted by the company against a group of vocal opponents.

Armed with a slick presentation, a well-known traffic consultant, a human resources representative and public relations specialists, Ikea was up to the test Thursday night at a public meeting hosted by Community Board 6 at the PAL Miccio Center, on West Ninth Street.

But while Ikea has been in contract for two years to build a 346,000-square-foot retail store at the former New York Shipyard site, just last week, a major Baltimore developer has put forth a proposal to build a sweeping retail, residential and marina development on the site instead.

The Ikea site is bounded by Beard and Halleck streets to the north, the Erie Basin to the south, Columbia Street to the east and a deep-water slip roughly at Dwight Street to the west.

Asked at this week’s meeting about the “alternative plan,” as the proposal by Struever Bros. Eccles & Rouse has come to be known, Patrick Smith, real estate developer for Ikea, emphatically stated that the Ikea proposal was the only one on the table
.
“This Ikea will be built!” he said in response to a question posed by a community member that asked whether Ikea would remain committed to providing Red Hook residents with jobs should the company have to look elsewhere in the metropolitan area.

Another Ikea official called the alternate proposal “transparent” and “cynical,” implying that the plan was just a ploy to thwart the Ikea effort.

Before the meeting, Ikea officials passed around copies of a letter blasting opponents for posting “numerous exaggerations, misrepresentations and outright fabrications” on a Web site devoted to opposing the big box store.

At the same time, opponents passed out a flier containing those same points, claiming the store would attract 2.5 million cars and trucks to Red Hook each year.

“We shouldn’t give our waterfront away for free,” said Declan Walsh, a Red Hook resident and local property owner who is advocating for more “waterfront appropriate” development.

Walsh also noted that Ikea, whose president was recently named the wealthiest man in the world, would make a fortune on the adjacent restaurant and retail space it plans to build on the site.

From the start, CB6 Chairman Jerry Armer made it clear that the meeting was to remain orderly.
“This is not the meeting where you are going to be making statements … tonight we are to find out what the project is all about,” Armer told a crowd of about 100 residents and community board members.

The Ikea plan has already split the community into two camps — those who want jobs and those who are concerned about traffic, and each side was equally represented at the meeting.

Ikea has reached out to the Red Hook Houses city housing projects, which are home to 75 percent of the neighborhood’s residents.
Some of those residents attended Wednesday’s meeting to press Ikea officials about jobs.

“We want to be clear that these Red Hook residents are going to have jobs. We want a job and that’s why we’re here supporting you,” said Stanley Morrison, a member of the Red Hook Houses East Tenant’s Association.

In an effort to hire locally, Ikea is opening up the hiring process to residents within the 11231 ZIP code two weeks before everybody else. Ikea officials estimate that they will hire 600 people for the new store.

While Ikea officials have stated that construction will all be completed with union labor, store employees would not be unionized.
For the most part, Ikea officials outlined the modifications to their plan, as first reported in The Brooklyn Papers last week, which include leasing four piers to the neighboring Erie Basin Barge Port, which is home to 200 working vessels. Ikea also would maintain a dry dock, convert an existing pier into a public area and maintain five gantry cranes on the site so visitors can learn about waterfront activities.

The changes include increasing a public esplanade along the water to 6.4 acres, or a mile end to end, and building a “green roof” with solar panels atop the store. And the plan also includes 71,400 square feet of additional retail and restaurant space and 1,400 parking spaces. The store would be elevated 18 feet to allow for 600 parking spots underneath.

The slick presentation, which included a computer-generated tour of the built site to the strains of Dire Straits’ “Walk of Life,” elicited more than a few chuckles from those in attendance.

Confronted with concerns about traffic, Ikea consultant Sam Schwartz, a former city Transportation commissioner, better known as “Gridlock Sam” for his newspaper advice column, said that even at peak traffic times there would be just an additional 10 cars per minute in the area.

“New Yorkers are good schleppers,” said Schwartz who stressed that many shoppers would come by public transportation or ferry and either haul their goods home with them or pay for delivery.

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority has agreed to extend the B61 bus to the store, Schwartz said, noting that the store would also provide bus drivers with a needed amenity — a place to go to the bathroom.

Ikea would also provide free shuttle bus service from subway stations at Borough Hall, Smith/Ninth Street and Fourth Avenue/Ninth Street and free ferry service between the store and Manhattan, Schwartz said.

“Let’s just give it a chance,” said Victor Villafone, a city correction officer and lifelong resident of Red Hook
“It’s not union, but it’s a job,” he added.

©2004 Community Newspaper Group