Borough President Marty Markowitz this week said he wants an Ikea megastore
to be built on the Red Hook waterfront, but he wants the Swedish home
furnishings giant to bring something with it — daycare.
“Parents should not have to make the choice of having to care for
their children or going to work,” Markowitz said in his recommendation
in favor of the Ikea plan, released Monday.
While Ikea has agreed to open a job-training center in Red Hook and open
the job application process to residents in the area two weeks before
other applicants, Markowitz said that is not enough.
“A key issue for facilitating employment, especially in single-parent,
female-headed households, is the provision of dependable day care,”
his recommendation reads.
While Ikea provides child care for employees at its European stores, company
officials have said that is not part of its policy in the United States.
Markowitz offered his stamp of approval on the controversial plan to build
a 346,000-square-foot Ikea on the Erie Basin off Columbia Street, but
included several conditions — day care, a job retention program and
a commitment to the arts.
For the past several months, the communities in and around Red Hook have
been battling over the prospect of the big-box store occupying the 22-acre
former New York Shipyard site along the Erie Basin.
The plan also includes 71,400 square feet of adjacent restaurant and retail
space, 1,400 parking spaces and a 6.2-acre public esplanade.
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 much-needed jobs to the neighborhood and
those who fear Ikea traffic will destroy quality of life and feel that
better uses could be found for the valuable waterfront property.
Ikea promises 600 jobs at the new store and company officials say they
will aim to fill many of those slots with local residents.
Roughly 75 percent of Red Hook’s population lives in the Red Hook
Houses public housing apartment buildings, where support for the Ikea
plan has been strong due to the high unemployment rate among tenants.
Ikea was able to rally leaders within the Red Hook Houses early on, leading
to a tremendous amount of political pressure to approve the plan.
“With an annual employment turnover of up to 40 percent at Ikea stores,
there is a risk that Red Hook residents will become an ever-decreasing
part of the Ikea workforce,” said Markowitz, who is asking the company
to fund an organization that will help retain local employees.
Markowitz has also asked Ikea to open a cultural facility for the community
and to “consider displaying Brooklyn artists’ work as decor
items amongst its home furnishing exhibits, making the store a truly unique
Brooklyn experience.”
Ikea officials did not return calls seeking comment for this story.
Because the area is zoned for heavy manufacturing, Ikea requires a variance
from the city to allow the retail use. That variance must pass the city’s
Uniform Land Use Review Procedure, a seven-month process that has included
hearings before Community Board 6, which also approved of the plan, and
Markowitz. It next goes before the City Planning Commission and then to
the City Council.
Community Board 6 gave a positive recommendation to the proposal last
month and noted several traffic-related concerns.
But three board members who live in Red Hook held their ground, arguing
that the massive store would snarl traffic and turn Red Hook and surrounding
neighborhoods into a “suburban strip mall.”
“I’m tired of Manhattan turning Brooklyn into the new Paramus,”
said board member Edith Stone, one of the three who voted against the
Ikea application. “It’s time to say, ‘No more big box stores’,”
she said at the vote.
The lower-cost, assembly-required furniture retailer first tried to open
a store in Brooklyn on a former U.S. Postal Service site along the Gowanus
Canal at Second Avenue and 12th Street three years ago. Park Slope residents,
fearing traffic congestion, protested the plan and Rep. Nydia Velazquez
even threatened to sue to stop Ikea from coming to the site.
By June 2001, Ikea pulled out of negotiations with the site’s leaseholder,
Forest City Ratner, saying it could not agree on who would pay for the
necessary cleanup of the long-contaminated site.
A Lowe’s home improvement store opened there in April.
