The developers of Southtown expect to reach "signature stage" on deals for as many as three Phase One buildings in about three months.

Meeting transcript

Deals being considered include graduate student housing, employee housing for a medical institution, and - possibly - an assisted-living facility.

Under present planning, construction materials will roll down Main Street from the existing spiral ramp to the site.

These points and others were discussed last week in a public meeting of the Residents Association Planning Committee. David Wine of The Related Companies and David Kramer of the Hudson Companies appeared, along with Vincent Arcuri of Morse Diesel. Morse is serving as owner's representative on the project, representing the Roosevelt Island Operating Corporation. This was the first public appearance of the developers subsequent to their receiving the "final designation" status from the RIOC Board of Directors.

While Wine and Kramer said much of the detail about Southtown remains to be fleshed out, they also told The WIRE before the meeting that they feel their "massing plan" - sizes and positioning of the buildings - has been approved by the RIOC Board of Directors and is essentially final. Arcuri also made it clear that construction of the nine-building complex must proceed from north to south, starting near the existing community where connections to elements of infrastructure will be less costly.

When one resident, Lee Edelman, asked, "If the community wanted and RIOC wanted, could the plan be changed at this point?" the answer, given by Wine of Related, showed a reluctance to consider changes. Wine said the developers had been to "ten or fifteen" community meetings, and responded, "Those are a lot of hypotheticals, and it's up to RIOC to come to us and to say, 'Wait a minute, we want to stop the process.' We have been operating under the assumption that it is desired that Southtown be built, and we have gone through a many-year process to get to this point, and what you are asking is whether or not we are willing to prolong the process even more, and that is not the message that we are getting from RIOC. If RIOC were to follow your desires then they would have to come to us and we would have to evaluate it."

When Edelman pressed the point, asking, "If RIOC said to you, 'We want to reconsider the plan,' is that possible at this time?" Wine responded, "If RIOC said that to me? Absolutely possible."

A number of members of the RIRA Common Council, as well as attending residents, asked questions driving at a concern about a plan relying on a transient population of residents. Jeff Hochman, a Common Council member (who co-chairs the RIRA Planning Committee with Judith Berdy) and serves on the RIOC Board's Capital Planning and Development Committee (CPDC), an advisory body, told Kramer and Wine, "We don't want you to just put in these condos for transient tenants just because that's what the market could build. I don't think that we residents of the Island care about that. We care more about the type of tenants that will be there," Larry Parnes, who serves with Hochman on CPDC, told the developers, "I don't think that's an appropriate use... I think it's wholly inappropriate... I would like to see you abandon [that idea]." Implicit in these questions and comments is the concern that a transient population might not become involved in the community or become invested in its future. Another resident, Steve Marcus, said such residents would be "a bunch of college students who certainly are going to contribute nothing to the social fabric of this Island... They're certainly not going to contribute anything to the community... If we're going to get new residents, we'd very much like to see them in our churches, in our stores, on the street, in our Little League, and so forth, so that they make a contribution."

Wine responded to Hochman, "I have to tell you, quite frankly, you might not care about the marketability of Southtown as an overall development, but that is my concern... We do have to be responsive to the market, and we do have to be responsive to the economics."

The possibility of graduate student housing was mentioned prominently for the first time in the meeting. As reported in previous issues of The WIRE, an "east side medical institution" is discussing the possibility of taking an entire Southtown building for employee housing, but it's unknown whether that population is likely to be mostly transient or mostly stable.

Other points covered in the meeting:

• The developers are still weighing the question of rental apartments vs cooperatives, details not likely to be settled until they're nearer a conclusion on pending deals.
• The location of a soccer field planned for an area immediately north and east of the Tramway station was criticized as "anathema" and an "afterthought" that would not adequately replace the shore-to-shore open space just north of the abandoned nurses residence. The new field was described by Kramer as "grade A." RIRA Vice President Joan Christianson told the developers it is imperative that the field be suitable for both soccer and baseball, and that no playing time be lost.
• There will be retail areas in the development, probably clustered around the public plaza planned for the area east of the subway station. "We've tried to strike a balance between having convenient retail near the subway, but not having so much that it overwhelms and penalizes... the [existing] retailers."
• The nurses residence will be demolished if three buildings are put up in phase one. (Earlier, The WIRE had reported RIOC President Robert Ryan's understanding that the derelict would come down if two Southtown buildings were built.)
• Committee co-chair Judy Berdy urged the developers not to concentrate "all one [kind of] people," such as medical center staff, "in one building." She added, "It's like a ghetto." She urged that such a population be spread among several buildings.
• Berdy said that RIOC President Robert Ryan would be asked to attend the next meeting between the community and the developers. (No meetings have yet been scheduled.)

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