Manhattan's Riviera

Not even catastrophe could keep Battery Park City down.

By Mark A. Newman

Battery Park City was a hidden jewel among the thousands of residents who called this incongruous bit of property at the southwestern tip of Manhattan and in the shadow of the World Trade Center their home.

That all changed on Sept. 11, 2001. Battery Park City, like much of downtown, was coated in the thick residue that spilled forth when the twin towers collapsed. Residents made headlines or sound bites when they could not get to their homes.

What had once been an almost exclusive club of residents in a beautiful waterfront neighborhood had become a disaster area. Construction activity in Battery Park City came to a standstill. Work on the Solaire, designated as the first green high-rise on the continent, was "mothballed," said the building's construction manager, Carlo A. DiSilvestro of Turner Construction Company. "We came back Oct. 20 to backfill and close up all the holes so we wouldn't have a big swimming pool there and we walked away for a little while."

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The Solaire's construction manager, Martin Dettling of Albanese Organization, Inc. in Garden City, N.Y., added that after Sept. 11, "It took a lot of strong people in New York City to look around the neighborhood and see that it is the most beautiful part of Manhattan. You don't see parks or harbor views like this anywhere else."

Ultimately the Solaire bounced back and opened its doors to tenants nearly two years later.

And today, Battery Park City is proving to be a vibrant part of the city with a number of construction projects in various forms of completion and future projects coming down the pike.

The success of the neighborhood did not happen overnight. It came about largely through the efforts of the Hugh L. Carey Battery Park City Authority, a benefit corporation that was created by the New York State Legislature in 1968 to encourage residential and commercial development.

A New Neighborhood is Born

The area, once home to a series of dilapidated docks, first became the focus of developers in the early 1960s.

Then in 1966 Gov. Nelson Rockefeller's plan to create a neighborhood was designed by Wallace K. Harrison. The design called for housing and social services to be built over a level of light industry.

The first master plan for the site was developed in 1969, after the creation of the BPCA, and by 1972, $200 million in obligatory bonds were issued by the agency that would provide for the 92-acre landfill that would become Battery Park City.

The first 20 acres of the landfill came courtesy of the World Trade Center's "bathtub," the enormous basement from which the twin towers would eventually rise. As the landfill progressed, a beach was formed prior to any of the new buildings being constructed - and the city saw six different master plans for the site come and go.

"(Former Gov.) Hugh Carey deserves a lot of credit for taking a problem and creating a solution," said Timothy S. Carey, BPCA president and CEO and no relation to the governor.

"Cooper Eckstut developed a master plan that created an extension of Lower Manhattan. They brought back the streetscapes and developed the parcels one at a time instead of all at once, which facilitated a master zoning amendment."

Setting Standards Downtown

January 2000 also saw the creation of Battery Park City's design guidelines. The guidelines controlled the outside envelope of the buildings and made them similar in quality.

From these standards, Battery Park City has avoided the type of haphazard development prevalent throughout the rest of Manhattan.

The guidelines ensure a certain amount of uniformity while also allowing flexibility for the developers, said Anthony Woo, BPCA's vice president of construction. "Sure we want stone and brick on the buildings, but we also want to the builders to have the freedom to be creative. Since so many developers respond to each RFP, I think that any doubts they may have had in the past [about guidelines] have fallen away.""

Developers have been eager to be a part of the neighborhood.

"The authority has done a wonderful job with its design guidelines and it has easily enhanced the entire city," said Steve Ross, chairman/CEO, Related Companies. "These guidelines and the authority's strict adherence to them is a real model for other waterfront developments. Queens West and other projects should attempt to emulate what the BPCA has done."

The BPCA also issued environmental guidelines for residential developers in 2000, which require that all construction must be environmentally friendly or "green" during the construction process and especially after the building is completed.

Woo said there is typically $240 million in construction annually in Battery Park City. While each of the sites is easily worth well over $100 million, there are numerous smaller projects that are endlessly taking place, each of them worth anywhere from $3 million to $10 million.

"The dollar amount of construction taking place changes every month," he said. "That's how much activity is going on down here."

Battery Park City is no longer a secret. Indeed, it has become some of the most sought-after real estate in the country and has set an example for all Manhattan neighborhoods.

Related articles (BPCA Profile):
	Construction Boom New Residential Buildings Slated for Battery Park City.
	Going Green Downtown Battery Park City's residential buildings are almost greener than its parks.
	Neighborhood Watch When the world changed on Sept. 11, Battery Park City responded without hesitation.