Past issues
The Paper in print
RSS feeds
Print edition (PDF)
Email Alerts- The current issue
- Neighborhood Map
- Bay Ridge
- Bensonhurst, Dyker Heights
- Brooklyn Heights
- Downtown, DUMBO
- Carroll Gardens
- Cobble Hill, Red Hook, Boerum Hill
- Fort Greene
- Clinton Hill, Crown Heights
- North Brooklyn
- Williamsburg, Greenpoint, Bushwick
- Park Slope
- Prospect Heights, Windsor Terrace, Greenwood Heights
- GO Brooklyn
- Brooklyn Cyclones
- Not Just Nets
- Police Blotter
- Perspective
- Parenting
- Politics
- Transit
- Media archive
- The Brooklyn Bride
- Brooklyn Boom
- Classifieds
- Merchant news
- About The Paper
- RSS Feeds
-
Coney hot for development, cool to housing
Print this story
digg
del.icio.usConey Island is strongly behind developer Joe Sitt’s $1.5-billion plan to transform the rundown amusement area into a mini-Las Vegas — but a sizable minority does not want to see new housing be part of the mix.
In a telephone survey of 400 neighborhood residents, commissioned by Sitt, nearly 80 percent approve of his notion of turning the busy-in-summer, dead-in-winter neighborhood into a year-round attraction.
But a significant number — 38 percent — said they did not want the luxury housing that would help Sitt finance his project, which would include the rundown stretch of property between West 12th and West 15th streets that he already owns, plus the Astroland site he bought this week.
The plan includes four towers, two hotels, time-share condos and at least one apartment building that could rise up to 40 stories.
A spokesman for Sitt has said the condos, which are typically more lucrative than other kinds of development, will pay for the other attractions — a 150-foot water slide, the biggest new roller coaster in the city since the Cyclone, and a multilevel carousel.
“The problem with amusements is that they don’t make money,” said spokesman Lee Silberstein. “They are too expensive and too seasonal and that is part of the reason why we want to do residential.”
But some longtime neighborhood boosters are wary.
“We’ve been saying for years that we want to keep the amusements in Coney, not see it get turned into condos,” said Chuck Reichenthal, district manager for Community Board 13.
©2006 The Brooklyn Paper
Reader Feedback
Enter your comment below
By submitting this comment, you agree to the following terms:
You agree that you, and not BrooklynPaper.com or its affiliates, are fully responsible for the content that you post. You agree not to post any abusive, obscene, vulgar, slanderous, hateful, threatening or sexually-oriented material or any material that may violate applicable law; doing so may lead to the removal of your post and to your being permanently banned from posting to the site. You grant to BrooklynPaper.com the royalty-free, irrevocable, perpetual and fully sublicensable license to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, create derivative works from, distribute, perform and display such content in whole or in part world-wide and to incorporate it in other works in any form, media or technology now known or later developed.
