Our exciting business plan! and updates!
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In Phase 2 of our build out, we propose putting our offices on top of the existing office suite on the east side and building a catwalk over to the warehouse space on the western side, near the water and our shop MARY A. WHALEN.
Last update 2/26/24
In 2023, the EDC released an RFP “the Atlantic Basin Anchor Subtenant RFP” that looks to displace us: the waterspace where the MARY A. WHALEN is berthed was listed as “available space.” The deadline for the RFP was 2/14/24, and PortSide responded to the RFP (see our response here) asking for space described below including what the EDC had promised us as a community give-back to Red Hook from 2008 into 2011 with updates and changes. The net effect of our proposal would allow us to satisfy long-standing plans to create a pipeline to marine careers for youth and adults, have more space for public programs, and create a PortSide campus in Atlantic Basin that will activiate the site and make it more hospitable, educational and an interesting and attractive maritime gateway to Red Hook as opposed to the bleak, run-down parking lot feel this place has now.
We asked for more space inside the Pier 11 shed, 12,000 sq ft.
We asked for less pier 11 berth space since other boat tenants are now here
We asked for permission to build a small wet lab structure that the firm MADE has offered to design
We requested permission for a subtenant boat to be used for maritime training, and for small boat activities
We asked for permission to amenities for wildlife on land and water and interpretation of them and history of Atlantic Basin.
The vision and plan
PortSide NewYork plans to create a waterfront center that is an exciting maritime attraction and gateway to Red Hook, serves all aspects of the neighborhood (residents of NYCHA and private housing, retail, industrial and maritime businesses, the creative sector), visitors, and the working waterfront - with a strong pipeline to marine careers.
In building space: a youth boat building shop (compare to Rocking the Boat), classrooms for school kids and where adults take classes get Coast Guard licenses, a big warehouse space for exhibits, conferences, performing arts, holiday market, and event rental space; maritime library, computer center, wet lab, small cafe, museum store, Red Hook tourism desk to draw cruise terminal passengers into the neighborhood. Our virtual guide Red Hook WaterStories would connect to all this.
On the pier: our ship MARY A. WHALEN and a landing for visiting vessels the public can ride (fishing, tour and dinner boats, historic ships and educational vessels). B-to-B services to workboats especially tugboat dock-n-shop, crew change, potable water, dumpster access and package pick up.
Outdoor parking lot south of Pier 11 Shed: PortSide Park + space for maritime festivals, shipwork projects, outdoor programs that don’t fit on the MARY A. WHALEN.
Permission for a small wet lab structure, powered by solar and wind, to be located next to the water south of MARY A. WHALEN due to the increasing number school requests for marine life programs. The founder of the River Project is willing to advise as is the STEM teacher John Russo. The Red Hook architecture firm MADE has offered to design it!
All this is designed to inspire NYC to center maritime in waterfront redevelopment plans and use maritime as a driver for community and economic development. More #piers4boats we say!
The EDC promised space for this and didn’t deliever…
PortSide responded to the NYC EDC’s 2006 RFEI for Atlantic Basin. PortSide responded to the follow-up 2007 RFP.
From 2008 to Spring 2011, the NYC EDC promised PortSide a home in Atlantic Basin as a give-back to Red Hook for the NYC EDC master plan for Atlantic Basin that caused a lot of community uproar.
The EDC promised Red Hook that PortSide’s home would be 600’ of pier to program, about 6,500 sqft in the Pier 11 Shed warehouse (we had asked for more than 2x that), and use of the parking lot south of that building when no cruise ships were in (they use that space for parking when ships are here).
From 2008 through 2010, the NYC EDC made PortSide do “interim programs” and then made us do an architect building code review from late 2010 into 2011 for the office suite inside the promised building space. The NYC EDC then backed out on the deal. PortSide remained quasi-homeless and locked up in the Red Hook Container Terminal for most of a decade.
May 29, 2015, PortSide returned to Atlantic Basin thanks to the NYC EDC’s needing the approval of Councilman Carlos Menchaca for a deal in Sunset Park at SBMT. Menchaca made the EDC sign an LOI with community benefits, and we got space for the ship. We began asking for the formerly-promised building space. The pier was fully rented.
November 2017, the NYC EDC said we had to do a new business plan for the same building space during 2018. We did and presented it in January 2019. All about that below.
During 2019, Menchaca and Congresswoman Nydia Velazquez tried to negotiate with the NYC EDC. PortSide did not get what we needed. In 2020, we planned to go public with this story, but the pandemic hit.
Fed up with the EDC’s chronic unfairness and misrepresentations, and seeing a pattern of chronic incompetence and many cover-ups, in November 2022, we launched a campaign to reform the EDC called #rethinkEDC. We would rather inspire change via creating the PortSide waterfront center, but the expose mode has been forced on us.
2021-2023 updates:
Formule E moved out of the building space under discussion, at the EDC’s request, during December 2023. It is now available.
April 2023, the NYC EDC released the Atlantic Basin Anchor Subtenant RFP for Atlantic Basin due February 14, 2023 (no longer live on the EDC website). That does not guarantee PortSide a home here and looks to displace us as our ship’s berth space was listed as available. PortSide responded to the RFP, asking for the space we need, not to be the Anchor Subtenant.
In November 2022, after fifteen years of being battered by the EDC and of watching their mismanagement in general, PortSide launched the campaign and webpage #rethinkEDC.
A summary of EDC planning efforts in Atlantic Basin since 2005 is here. It’s been a tumultous history with few EDC plans working out.
September 2022, the EDC evicted beloved, award-winning PortSide Park that we installed June 2020, with permission of Ports America who has the lease on the space, in response to community needs during the pandemic.
June 2021, PortSide submitted a critique of the EDC to the “Comprehensive Waterfront Plan” (CWP) process of the Department of City Planning. In that, we upped our demand to 12,000 square feet (since 6,500 was never enough) and a 20 year lease because it had been THIRTEEN YEARS since the EDC first promised PortSide building space (and more) from 2008 into 2011, and has yet to deliver it (more on that saga here). This was not just a promise to PortSide, it was a COMMUNITY GIVE-BACK TO RED HOOK. At the same time, we asked people to support our effort to get buiding space and less oppressive terms by submitting comments to the CWP process of City Planning. OVER TWO THIRDS of all comments submitted (200+) supported PortSide’s ask below. Our request is below with updates in bold:
Give PortSide:
12,000 square feet at the south end of the Pier 11 warehouse and shared use of the adjoining loading dock with a 20-year lease. [No movement on this out of the NYC EDC as of 3/16/24.]
Use of the parking lot south of that space, with the approval of Ports America which uses it when cruise ships are at the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal. [Ports America has allowed this during the pandemic. The EDC evicted the beloved, heavily-used PortSide Park on 9/23/22, and has not responded to requests to allow it back as of 3/16/24.]
Permission to have revenue-generating activities (all are currently blocked) including vessels alongside their flagship MARY A. WHALEN that pay PortSide fees, retail (such as a museum store and café). [August 2021, the Port Authority greenlighted us on anything relating to their regs. Nothing out of NYC EDC as of 3/16/24.]
Demand that the Port Authority of NY & NJ lift their fees on photo, TV and film shoots that make the MARY A. WHALEN too expensive for shoots to use, effectively blocking that potential revenue stream. [August 2021, the Port Authority approved this.]
Relief from the requirement that PortSide submit permits for every event with over 20 people. Their lease (currently a berthing permit for the ship) should allow us to conduct normal operations without suffocating interventions like this. [August 2021, the Port Authority said only events of 75+ attendees needed this. October 2023, the EDC changed this to align with the Port Authority position after making us buy more insurance and shutting down our summer programs while all this was discussed.]
In 2022, we added:
Berth permit longer than one year to enable us to get multi-year grants and loans. The permits we were sent in 2022 and 2023, only have a one-year term.
The right to have people sleep on the MARY A. WHALEN for programs, visiting crew, and the security provided by a sleep-over shipkeeper.
Permission for a small wet lab structure, powered by solar and wind, to be located next to the water south of MARY A. WHALEN due to the increasing number school requests for marine life programs. The founder of the River Project is willing to advise as is the STEM teacher John Russo. The Red Hook architecture firm MADE has offered to design it!
PortSide’s 2018 business plan
On Monday 2/25/19, we presented to Brooklyn Community Board 6 (CB6) Economic/Waterfront/Community Development & Housing Committee (EWCDH) with an update on our business plan requested by the NYC EDC to enable PortSide to expand into the warehouse adjoining our ship MARY A. WHALEN. This presentation put our real estate story into the context of waterfront planning issues given the mission of the committee.
Here is the Powerpoint that we presented, lightly edited to add some slides to cover things that were conveyed orally.
Here is the handout we had, info on how to make this all happen by joining PortSide as a board member, advisor, fundraising committee member, etc.
What follows are some renderings from our business plan and below that photos and videos from our presentation of the business plan to the NYC EDC on 1/8/19.
Plan below: The orange outline is the square footage amount that the NYC EDC promised PortSide from 2008 through early 2011 (yes, we are trying to get space that was previously promised to us). The other lines reflect our requests to increase the space. We presented justifications for each bump out. 12,000 square feet, a space reaching to the top line in the drawing below, would make the most viable iteration of PortSide and would be the most logical division of space. The U-shape that the EDC promised PortSide from 2008into 2011, is too small, awkward to use, bifurcates access to the mezzanine over the existing office suite, does not have a wide enough connector between water and inland sides for fire safety movement from east to west, and makes a weird space for an adjoining tenant.
Below: The volumes of the space demarcated by the orange outline. We propose that our space go up as far as the grey of the floor in this rendering
Our presentation to the NYC EDC
We did this as a walkabout through the site, followed by a sit-down meeting in the conference room.
The space in question is divided into distinctly different subspaces:
a loading dock along the eastern/inland side
next to that, a suite of offices used by prior port uses
next to, west of that, a large garage space carved out of the warehouse space which we would make into a boat building shop
at the far west, and next to the pier, a high-ceiling warehouse space
We would change these spaces over time, in a phased renovation concurrent with our use of them, and end up putting our own offices above the existing office suite (elevating it for flood protection), using the space below for program space, building a catwalk from there to the western wall, improving the bathrooms and more. Our years of operating as a pop-up will be very helpful in this scenario. The local firm H.L. General Contractors offered to donate the conversion of the existing office suite, adding a proper public bathroom. They constructed the buildings for the local BASIS school (and own that property) and Red Hook Initiative (RHI). We identified other sources of pro bono labor, so build-out could start before completing a massive capital campaign.
We started our pitch on the NYC Ferry dock to emphasize our theme that Atlantic Basin is the “maritime gateway to Red Hook” and merits the enhancements PortSide proposes. Several of these (1-3 below) involve using information from our e-museum Red Hook WaterStories.
better signage/intro to Red Hook on the dock
educational info for waiting passengers including our flood-prep resiliency info
wayfinding and educational info strategically positioned throughout the site
an expanded, year-round PortSide in the southern end of the warehouse enabling us to do more programs than on our ship MARY A. WHALEN and serving as a welcome center in the maritime gateway to Red Hook.
The goal is a PortSide that better serves Red Hook AND that creates a compelling gateway to Red Hook that helps draw cruise terminal and ferry passengers into the neighborhood.
Below: Councilman Carlos Menchaca was a powerful advocate for PortSide NewYork. He negotiated with the NYC EDC to get us our current space for our ship, the MARY A. WHALEN, in 2015; and he has followed up with strong support for our efforts to get the building space here that was promised to us by the EDC from 2008 through early 2011.
Below: PortSide NewYork presentation of our business plan to NYC EDC on 1/8/19. Carolina Salguero positions our plan as creating the maritime gateway to Red Hook, speaking on the NYC Ferry dock. Our plan includes expansion into the building alongside our ship MARY A. WHALEN.
Below: Let’s make this weed patch educational! Carolina Salguero explains how changing signs will explain this urban wild patch, it’s nesting birds, plants and maritime WaterStories, the connector between the NYC Ferry dock and our ship MARY A. WHALEN.
Below: Hear one of our partners, Shannon Hummel, the founder of Cora Dance, explain the potential of the warehouse section of the space to impact Red Hook and the performing arts community of NYC. This building space will allow PortSide NewYork to better serve Red Hook, both via our own programs and by having space that we can make available for community meetings, events and performances by other non-profits. Our lead architect Severn Clay-Youman of Civic Architecture Workshop, a board member of Cora, is at left. The liferaft behind them will be a mobile Children’s Reading Room.
Below: a rendering of the planned community and performance space Shannon spoke about in the video above.
Community Sailing Proposal
The day before Thanksgiving 2018, PortSide was offered all the boats from a Community Sailing program that lost its space.
Our outreach in Red Hook shows many people interested in having such a program here. See our flyer at right. We need to find a waterspace for the boats during the summer. Atlantic Basin is full, has ferry traffic and exiting Atlantic Basin puts you in very fast currents with heavy ship traffic.
If this is a go, we propose to have the Community Sailing program use the above “warehouse” portion of the space from January to May (when it is too cold in there for exhibits and performing arts) as a winter shipyard to repair and store the sailboats. Our boat building program in an adjoining space could also roll projects out into this space. It can simultaneously be used for messy educational projects such as a pop-up wet lab and maker space for projects with schools. This could also be a rain-proof place to build floats for the October Barnacle Parade and host a Red Hook Winter Holiday Market before the sailboats get in there.
Below left: Shannon and Carolina explained how the loading dock will be a great outdoor stage or place for classes, small ship repair and STEM projects. Several community members helped set up and were in attendance.
Below right: an example of how PortSide used this loading dock in the past with our WHSAD interns to restore wheelhouse windows from our ship MARY A. WHALEN.
Below: AE Superlab bring their model of the building to the meeting. Principal Ahmed ElHusseiny is at left, Edson Pinto at right. The quotations over the windows were excerpted from letters of support that were submitted to the EDC. The windows look out over the loading dock towards Imlay Street.
Below: This meeting showed how easily this conference room can be used for conferences, book readings, talks, small exhibitions. This shows about a third of it. The person speaking at center, Carmen Rainieri of SKANSKA, is our construction estimator on this project. March 2022, with the permission of Formula E (the EDC rented the space to them after PortSide did the business plan) was used for an educational program with 40 students from the area and ones from Texas - proof that this space is usable with little investment/changes.
Below: Plans for this space by Severn’s firm CIVIC ARCHITECTURE WORKSHOP
Below: We received over 30 letters of support. Quotations from them ringed the room.
What PortSide means to people. Read the support letters
Support messages from elected officials and our local community board CB6 below. More letters from elected officials are coming:
Compilation of over 30 letters of support from elected officials, and members of the land and maritime communities.