Report: Downtown needs major transportation hub

Real Estate Weekly, Oct 2, 2002 by Parke Chapman

A quartet of city business groups is calling for a major downtown transportation hub linking JFK and Newark airports, among other infrastructure upgrades.

The Downtown Alliance, Association for a Better New York, the New York City Partnership and the Real Estate Board of New York collaborated on the broad six-page paper released last week.

There's nothing groundbreaking about the proposals. If anything, the paper's call for urgency is more striking than any of its specific suggestions.

It identifies transportation and infrastructure issues as top priorities, the second being retaining the financial firms downtown while attracting new industries to the area.

The third and fourth priorities are community development followed by waterfront revitalization and access.

"The focus of this paper is on downtown's infrastructure. We need to improve the larger site, instead of focusing on the nitty-gritty details of the World Trade Center site," said REBNY president Stephen Spinola.

The city, said Spinola, is still talking to the NYSE about building a backup trading facility somewhere inside New York City. The NYSE is exploring sites upstate right now.

Spinola's point is valid, as public discussion over what should be built on the site has been all consuming. Instead of working from the site out, Spinola believes that the opposite makes more sense.

"The future of lower Manhattan should include more office space. We're talking about what is best for the area," said Spinola.

The paper faults the public sector for its "failure, over the past 75 years, to invest in the regional transportation infrastructure" that a "high-end workforce" needs.

During the last decade, lower Manhattan was "the fastest growing residential neighborhood in Manhattan," much of this stemming from its proximity to jobs. In order for lower Manhattan to continue on this path, reads the paper, "necessary public investments" must be made in public services and quality of life improvements.

The paper calls for constructing 8,000 apartment units south of Canal Street, extra schools, recreation space and a performing arts center. As for the WTC site itself, the paper's position is that housing should not be built there--instead this area should be reserved for office space and cultural institutions.

Calling the New York Stock Exchange "the heart and soul of this powerful financial district," the paper urges the city and state to forge an agreement with the NYSE that would keep much of its operations downtown.

The East and Hudson River waterfronts need to be improved, adding open space access to the shoreline. Governor's Island should be redeveloped, though the paper doesn't specify what type of development. The waterfront portion of the paper does not mention new ferry terminals or expanded, government subsidized routes on the water.

The paper concludes by envisioning a future for lower Manhattan "that will be even more spectacular than its illustrious past--a unique urban center for the 21st Century."