Red Hook is currently awash in the building of new warehouses. No doubt the biggest is the massive new UPS distribution facility that starts across Valentino Park, extending on the water all the way to the Cruise Terminal.
The package delivery company paid $303 million for the property, which most recently was to be the hub of a new tech center masterminded by the Italian company Estate 4. That project, which never really got started, went belly up a few years ago. The six large parcels were sold at a profit to a leasing company, who turned around and tripled their money with the UPS deal.
UPS has been busily clearing the land through the pandemic in preparation to build, but how the company plans to getting their brown trucks in and out of Red Hook are as of today a mystery, which has made some residents anxious.
The new facility is the lynchpin to UPS’s growth in the Northeast. Once packages are labeled they are sent to a regional sorting facility, which is what the Red Hook facility will be. Usually, if the destination for the package is less than 200 miles away, it will be transported from the sorting facility via truck, and if the destination is further away, it will go by air.
The Red Hook plant will be very similar to one recently built in Atlanta. It will use technology to do jobs that previously had to be done manually. That facility is 30-35% more efficient than older ones, which relied more heavily on manual sorting. Atlanta sorts more than 100,000 packages an hour, which is approximately 1,700 per minute. In total, UPS’ average package volume in the U.S. was 17,472 million in 2018. More and more packages are shipped every year, as shopping has been heading more and more online.
Similar UPS sorting facilities are opening in the following locations: Dallas and Ft. Worth, Texas, Phoenix, Salt Lake City and Indianapolis. None of those facilities are near the northeast, which makes the Red Hook facility very important.
While the site is crucial to UPS, a few Red Hook residents are wary of UPS, and how their new facility will change the neighborhood, especially the traffic.
Red Hook, always a mixed use community (meaning industry resides along residents), already has problems with trucks getting around the neighborhood. The existing truck route includes Van Brunt Street, which oversized trucks regularly clog.
Jim Tampakis of Marine Spares International and Tamco Mechanical, is the one person who has been trying to convince UPS to think about how to treat their new neighbors. Jim has been in Red Hook for 46 years, his businesses doing ship repairs and supplying spare parts for ships. He has maintained his business despite Red Hook’s changes both up and down.
“I want to see Red Hook prosper and go in the right direction,” said Tampakis, who works with Resilient Red Hook. That group was formed after Hurricane Sandy.
Tampakis’ suggestion is for UPS trucks to create a corridor — an alternative to the existing truck route in Red Hook.
The current truck route goes through some of the busiest parts of Red Hook, including Van Brunt, Beard and Bay Streets. Tampakis’ corridor would go down Ferris St., Clinton Wharf and Bowne St. and go along the waterfront past Pier 11. Using this alternative route, UPS will avoid overcrowding Red Hook’s residential and park areas.
Red Hook residents have repeatedly voiced frustration during Civic Association meetings about trucks waking them up early in the morning, and even causing some homes to shake.
“Trucks in Red Hook often come in at very early hours, like 4 am to avoid traffic,” said Tampakis. “A lot of the homes here are old and people can feel the rumbling from the trucks.”
If UPS uses the truck routes that are currently in place, that will make the already-difficult situation much worse. There is already traffic stemming from double-parked trucks making deliveries in Red Hook. Using the current truck routes will worsen the issue, while using the corridor would help solve it.
The corridor would have other benefits for Red Hook. Van Brunt St. has repeatedly had issues with flooding.
“On Friday [July 17,] there were five or six places in Red Hook that flooded including by Fairway on Van Brunt St. and by Valentino Pier Park,” said Tampakis. “A UPS truck actually got stuck because the water was so deep.”
In order for the corridor to work, UPS would have to work with the NYC Economic Development Corporation and the Department of Transportation (DOT).
Both declined to be interviewed but DOT gave a statement about working with UPS.
“The UPS project is in preliminary stages, and as we have only recently started informal discussions with UPS, we do not have any information to provide at this time,” said Amanda Kwan of the DOT.
That statement sounds like the DOT does not know what UPS plans to do and it could be a while before a plan is in place. UPS also declined to be interviewed to answer questions directly but released a general statement.
“We understand that traffic issues are important to the Red Hook community,” said Kim Krebs, a public relations person at UPS. “We are still in the process of taking over the property and completing approved Brownfield remediation efforts. These continue to be key steps in the feasibility and planning process.
The type of UPS operations established at this location will be finalized further along in the planning phase. Once this is determined, more information about the UPS vehicles servicing the facility will be available. Once the traffic study is considered complete, we will be happy to share details.”
UPS said they are working on more specific responses to questions about their truck routes, sent to them by Tampakis at the beginning of the summer. They originally said they planned to have a response by late July but that turned out to be premature.
Currently, it seems like UPS has not decided which truck routes they will use, and that means the corridor remains a possibility. If UPS decides to use the corridor or waterfront for their routes, it would be beneficial to work with leaders from the Red Hook Container Terminal.
“As of now I haven’t spoken to anyone from UPS, but I would be happy to if they have any questions,” said Del Bobish, executive vice president of Red Hook Terminals.
While residents are concerned and anxious about what routes UPS will end up using in Red Hook, a decision has yet to be made. That means residents still have an opportunity to voice all of their concerns and try to work with UPS so their input is included in UPS’ decision-making.
“A lot of times people just completely ignore the concerns of the people who actually live here [in Red Hook]” said Tampakis. “We just hope UPS will make the effort to work with us.”
In addition to the UPS construction, the neighborhood is seeing at least two other giant last-mile warehouses being built. One is next to IKEA, and other next to the still closed ballfields on Bay Street. There have been rumors that one of them might become an Amazon facility.
When we asked the office of the local councilman, we were told that since both projects were as-of-right, meaning they did not require any special approvals, there was nothing that could be done about them or their plans.
