Staten Island, NY – New housing developments could be on the horizon for two properties of the seafront on the north shore formerly targeted as tourist attractions.
The president and chief executive officer of New York City Economic Development Corporation (EDC), Andrew Kimball, said on Friday that before a public information session on Monday, his agency, a non -profit organization, widely controlled by the city government, sees a real opportunity for residential conversions to the wheel of the Empire and for a new development at the old site planned for the New York Wheel.
“We recognize that the original vision did not work in the way in which the previous administrations thought it,” he said about the points of sale of the Empire. “We always think that it is important to have a real detail presence, but should it be as great as today?”
Kimball said that the decrease in the demand for physical retail space, stimulated in part by the coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19), was part of the reason why the city’s first shopping center has never been up to its full potential.
According to Kimball, the owners of Empire Outlets, built on land belonging to the government, came to see the need for a change on the site, in particular housing and extended commercial opportunities and health services.
“I think they recognize that two errors were made in construction. One was in the global quantities of retail that could be supported. And two was with the restrictive nature of the retail type of retail that you could bring to it,” he said.
On the New York site, which was once planned for the largest ferris wheel in the world, Kimball said that the EDC saw that it was time to change completely direction.
A request for proposals at the end of 2023 in search of developers to take over the wheel site with the possibility of new use of entertainment or leisure has never materialized, and for EDC, marked the last attempt to put the entertainment ship there.
“It’s time to remove the dressing and reinvent this site completely,” he said. “With its access to the seafront, remarkable views, having a conversation on the potential of the accommodation there, it is a lot of meaning.”
Kimball said that EDC intended to keep at least part of the massive garage on the wheel site with the possibility of also reusing it for residential uses.
In recent years, the EDC and the member of the Council Kamillah Hanks, a Democrat representing the North Shore, have led the renewal of a series of dormant projects along the seafront of the North Shore by dating the action plan of the North Coast, which, which, which, which, which Mayor Eric Adams announced in 2023.
A large part of the plan was already underway but The new initiative Presented a public investment of $ 400 million which, according to officials, will create a new seafront with open spaces, 2,400 dwellings and commercial opportunities which, according to officials, could provide more than 7,500 new jobs and 3.8 billion dollars in economic impact.
The last months have seen several networks and cuttings of ribbon linked to the plan, including the ceremony revolutionary of the development of mixed income housing of 500 units in StapletonAnd The opening of the long -awaited lighthouse tower in St. George.
Residents of the region have long considered the sites to be discussed on Monday as indicating a failed revitalization effort over ten years ago.
Although no plan has been finalized, the information session on Monday will give the community its first chance of making its voice heard on the new management of the two sites announced more than ten years ago which have never been up to their potential sold.
At the time, supporters sold them as a means of obtaining Tourists from the Ferry from Staten Island in the local community spending their dollars locally.
“I think there had been a notion of going to a retail shopping center which would not only attract the Staten Islanders, but the people of the region. (And) betting on entertainment, especially for tourists,” said Kimball. “We do a pivot through the North Shore action plan to focus on what local residents would really like to see.”