Grand Central BID readies for $30M in capital projects - business improvement district

Real Estate Weekly, April 22, 1992 by Lois Weiss

Imagine crossing the street at a gently curving dip, not stepping into a massive puddle and being able to walk in the relative safety of a clearly marked wider cross walk.

Imagine having a place to sit for a few moments to eat your lunch, and then having separate containers to dispose of the newspapers, the bag and the soda can.

Imaging walking towards Grand Central Station after working late one evening -- or if you're lucky after dinner and a Broadway show--and having comforting pools of light in the middle of the block.

Imagine catching a bit of shade under a leafy tree in the summer and watching the leaves turn on 43rd Street in the fall.

Imagine having a cappuccino after work at a glass walled cafe under the Park Avenue viaduct, and walking there on a wide pedestrian plaza.

While area owners agree that streets are cleaner and safer thanks to the Grand Central Partnership's Safety Patrols and white uniformed Clean Team, it is the $30 million in capital projects and esthetics details that will create the feeling of a special place around Grand Central Terminal and the 53 blocks which comprise the Business Improvement District (BID).

The BID is to large -- encompassing some 80 acres, it is in fact bigger than the downtown area of San Francisco -- that GCP planners were able to agree with the city on a demonstration area which will then be approved as a total concept instead of one block at a time. This demonstration are will run crosstown from 43 Street and Fifth Avenue to Vanderbit Avenue, and then south to 42 Street.

Unlike what was expected to be encountered, Arthur Rosenblatt, vice president of the Partnership who is in charge of the capital projects, said the city administrators, particularly those in the Department of Transportation, were extremely cooperative.

"They listened and responded," he said, " and we didn't have to wait six months to hear about it."

They may have also been impressed that the GCP presented full-color completely detailed drawings that designated among other things, the placement of every tree and every light post and traffic sign for the entire area.

The agreement by the various city agencies to approve the demonstration area also gave the BID's planners the ability to quickly show the more than 200 business members what has been developed over hundreds of planning sessions.

"There is an anxiety on the fringes to start," said Rosenblatt. But once the demonstration area is approved, he explained, it is those on the fringes of the BID who are most likely to see the fruits of their special assessments the fastest. This is because it is easier for the construction crews to work outside of the more central areas that have the greatest traffic, he said. The outer edge renovation will also provide an envelope of improvements to define the GCP, much like string hung from street poles defines the residential area of an orthodox Jewish eruv.

Rosenblatt, who was the moving force behind the expansion of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, including the construction of the Temple of Dendur and the newest major halls, is bringing the sensitive eyes of an artist to the battleground of the city streets.

He describes the soon-to-be-installed GCP granite curbstones as "rosier" than those now found selectively around the Terminal. The curbstones and the other details, he said, will give the BID a signature and identity much like that of Rockefeller Center.

"We want to make it the preferred business area," he said, "just as 34th Street is the preferred retail area."

In fact, the GCP, the new 34th Street Partnership, as well as the Bryant Park BID, share presidents and offices in what has become the nerve center of Midtown's move to reclaim the streets for the people. On the day of a reporter's visit, Rosenblatt raced down to Bryant Park to verify the location of a gas connection that was needed for a concessionaire who had insisted upon it in his contract. The connection was not where one city map said it should be. Rosenblatt said it is discrepancies like this that have led to a most high technology and resourceful solution.

A large piece of the district GCP's underground utilities has been programmed into a computer by Vollmer Associates in a massive and detailed undertaking to create a consolidated program of underground utilities that cost $100,000. Rosenblatt described the results as akin to something out of "The Incredible Voyage" and called it the "best organized and most comprehensive archaeological records" of the city's underground systems. He said there had even been a proposal for a color video system but felt it would be too costly.

The system they use can create a printout of a "slice" of midtown underground at five feet or 10 feet, or whatever the researcher needs. While it is not perfect in every way, Rosenblatt says, the computerized information will still be a time and money saver since not as many test probes will have to be made before construction.

BID owners may have access to the sysstem whenever renovation and construction are contemplated and Rosenblatt expects that the information will also become part of the research materials available at the new Science Industry and Business Library.