BMT redevelopment update: March, by Oscar Fock

As most in the neighborhood are aware by now, the Brooklyn Marine Terminal is being redeveloped.

Since our latest story in the February Star-Revue, nothing has happened that has changed the course of the city’s Economic Development Corporation (EDC), which leads the project on behalf of the city. Despite continued calls to push the deadline for the finished master plan, the plan still looks to be for the task force (a group of 27 local politicians and stake-holders who were tasked with telling EDC where the community stands as regards to the future of our shoreline) to vote in April. Not even the resignation of former Deputy Mayor Maria Torres-Springer — who was the city’s top official on this project — was enough to throw a wrench into the works.

The presentation from the Feb. 12 task force meeting caused an outcry, as it included five scenarios for the marine terminal for the task force to consider. One scenario included nearly 13,000 units of housing, thousands more than the 7,000-9,000 units that were originally shared with the task force in December 2024.

However, this scenario, titled “maximized housing” relies on the assumption the a site south of the port, called the “UPS site” because it’s owned by the shipping giant, would be used for housing. This may be unlikely, according to a Jan. 26 letter from EDC President Andrew Kimball to the task force’s leaders. Kimball writes, “It would not provide a significant cross-subsidy for the port.

Recent conversations between UPS and EDC have been unproductive with wildly unrealistic expectations of the site’s value.”

UPS might be asking for as much as $480 million, based on cost estimates for the five scenarios.

The two scenarios which include the site both have a $500 million line item called “private sites,” while private site acquisitions in the scenario that doesn’t include the UPS site are only estimated to be around $20 million. If $480 million is the asking price, that would be a significant increase from the $303 million that UPS paid when it bought the site in 2018.

Nevertheless, most area residents don’t want 9,000, or even 7,000 units, at least if most of them would be market rate rentals and condos. The housing plan, and the way it has been shoehorned into what should have been a community-driven process, has caused some Red Hook and Columbia Waterfront District neighbors to hold their own meetings to formulate a unified vision for what the community wants to see at the new Brooklyn Marine Terminal. On Feb. 3, a group hosted one such meeting, and the same group is hosting another meeting on March 11.

The City Club of New York hosted a panel on Feb. 27 on the redevelopment. The panel, which included Pratt Institute Professors David Burney and Deborah Gans, Rutgers University Professor James DeFilippis and Carly Baker-Rice, executive director of the Red Hook Business Alliance and BMT Task Force Member, noted that the EDC’s process appears predetermined and that “there is a broadly-held belief that the Economic Development Corporation has rather stacked the deck before the process has started.”

The planning process also prompted Brooklyn’s Community Board 6 to draft a strongly worded letter to the EDC and the City of New York, stating that there are “significant concerns regarding the ongoing process and proposed plans for the Brooklyn Marine Terminal redevelopment” which require “immediate attention and resolution.”

The next EDC-led public workshop is planned for later in March. We will continue to cover the redevelopment in future issues.

Oscar Fock

I’m a New York-based journalist from Sweden. I write about the environment, how climate change impacts us humans, and how we are responding.