A plan to build an Ikea store on the Red Hook waterfront moved a step
closer to city approval Thursday night when a Community Board 6 committee
recommended approving the plan.
The landmarks and land use committee voted overwhelmingly in favor of
welcoming the Swedish home furnishings giant.
For the past several months the communities in and around Red Hook have
has been battling over the prospect of the big box store occupying the
22-acre former New York Shipyard site — roughly between Dwight and
Columbia streets along the Erie Basin.
The proposal has been tearing at the seams of an already socially and
economically divided community, splitting Red Hook into two camps —
those concerned about bringing jobs to the neighborhood and those who
fear Ikea traffic will destroy their quality of life and that better uses
could be found for the valuable waterfront property.
Ikea has successfully rallied support in the Red Hook Houses, two public
housing projects that account for most of the neighborhood’s population.
Some of those supporters attended Thursday’s meeting wearing yellow
“Ikea Great Idea” T-shirts and baseball caps.
One woman wearing an Ikea T-shirt said she was neither paid nor promised
anything to attend the nearly four-hour meeting at MS 142 on Henry Street
and Second Place. She was “hoping to get a couple of jobs out of
this,” she said.
Several committee members grilled Ikea representatives on traffic mitigation
and asked for sound commitments to investment in the community.
While the committee ultimately approved the plan, it offered several conditions
including:
•Ikea should not be allowed to open until all necessary traffic mitigations
are put into place.
•Ikea must conduct a study one year after opening to re-examine traffic
patterns and pay for whatever changes are needed.
•Within five years Ikea must examine bringing in freight by ship
instead of trucks.
•The community board also asked for a firm commitment that Ikea fund
a job-training program for Red Hook residents.
The full board will vote on the proposal at its general meeting on Wednesday,
June 9, 6:30 pm, at the YMCA, 357 Ninth St., in Park Slope.
While the store would bring more cars and trucks to the area, Ikea real
estate manager Patrick Smith said the store would also create 500 to 600
part-time and full-time jobs that pay “competitive wages.” Smith
was among a bevy of Ikea officials at Thursday’s committee meeting.
Red Hook activists opposed to the Ikea plan have been meeting with principals
of the Baltimore-based Struever Bros. Eccles & Rouse (SBER), a development
company known for adaptive reuse projects. The company has put together
a plan for a sprawling, 70-acre, retail, residential and commercial development
with a marina on the shipyard site between Richards and Columbia streets.
Bill Struever, a principal of the company, says his plan would bring upwards
of $2.5 billion of investment to the area and 5,000 jobs.
But that plan was not on the table Thursday night and CB6 Chairman Jerry
Armer made sure it would not become a topic of conversation, saying, “The
only proposal we’re going to consider tonight is the Ikea proposal.
The proposal for Ikea has to stand or fail on its own merits.”
The company has promised to open up the hiring process to residents in
Red Hook’s 11231 ZIP code two weeks before any other applications
are collected, although they say federal law prohibits them from promising
that any percentage of those jobs is held for neighborhood residents.
Ikea has also included a 6.2-acre waterfront esplanade and a “green”
roof with solar energy panels in their plan. In addition to Ikea, the
site will include 70,000 square feet of other retail and restaurant space.
The company plans to build 1,400 parking spaces and will provide ferry
service to the store from Lower Manhattan.
Because the area is zoned for heavy manufacturing, Ikea is seeking a variance
from the city to allow the retail use requiring that it pass through the
city’s Uniform Land Use Review Procedure, a seven-month process that
will also include hearings before Borough President Marty Markowitz, the
City Planning Commission and the City Council.
State Sen. Velmanette Montgomery, a vocal opponent of the $2.5 billion
Atlantic Yards residential, retail and commercial development In Prospect
Heights, attended Thursday’s meeting and came out in favor of the
store, seeming to believe that the only other alternative would be housing.
“I would hate to see our waterfront become the soul purview of people
in market-rate high rises,” Montgomery said.
While Ikea has been trying to negotiate a deal for the Red Hook site over
the past two years, Sunset Park-Red Hook Councilwoman Sara Gonzalez remained
silent until now.
This week, Gonzalez issued a press release supporting the project.
Despite the community board approval, many community members are still
fighting the plan.
Lou Sones, a member of the CB6 land use committee, who is a staunch opponent
of the Ikea plan, voted against the application.
“I’m disappointed,” said Sones. “I thought the board
showed no vision in approving this. … It appeared to me Ikea answered
none of the questions about traffic or jobs.”
