That’s the determined intent of a plan being developed by the Trust for Public Land in cooperation with the Roosevelt Island Operating Corporation (RIOC).

The Trust for Public Land (TPL) is the largest, and the only national organization, building parks – “preserving land for people,” as Susan Clark, its Director of Public Affairs puts it. Since its founding in 1972, TPL has had an involvement in helping to preserve 2,600 “special places,” ranging from pocket playgrounds to large parks, in 46 states.  Clark says that represents 1.9 million acres.  TPL was brought into the project on the initiative of Mary Beth Labate, who chairs the RIOC Board of Directors.

(For Roosevelt Island’s fireworks visitors or the uninitiated, RIOC is the New York State entity that holds the lease on New York City’s Roosevelt Island.  Since the 1970s, it or its predecessor agencies have been responsible for developing most of this East River island as residential, commercial, and recreational property, and managing it.  The corporation’s president and board of directors are appointed by the Governor.)

TPL’s planning is under the direction of Charles McKinney, a consultant hired for the job, and is laid out in detail on a new website at MarkKMorrison.com/roosevelt.  (Mark K. Morrison Associates is the landscape architecture firm working with TPL.)  The website displays the primary work done to date, a thorough analysis of the Southpoint site.  It includes site diagrams with the site’s constraints and park opportunities.

With site analysis complete, McKinney and TPL project these calendar goals:

• Mid-August:  Completion of three conceptual plans.

• September:  Public presentation of the three plans.

• November:  Presentation of a preferred plan.

• 2007:  First-phase construction.

Along the way, TPL will address fundraising and operating-budget concerns and work to build public and official support for the project.  “A lot of the work I do,” McKinney says, “involves finding partners and funders along the way – people who will help build part of it.”
He says there will be a mix – government, philanthropic, and corporate patrons.

McKinney, who is 52, spent 17 years as administrator of Riverside Park, but has lately been a consultant to the City on waterfront and open-space planning.  He comes with degrees in architecture and urban design, and in 1994 was a Loeb Fellow in the Graduate School of Design at Harvard.

Right now, TPL is looking for public input.  McKinney and an associate have already interviewed more than three dozen people – leaders of resident organizations, officials, and others, trying to “learn what insiders know” and “develop an understanding of the site from the perspective of the people who live and work on Roosevelt Island.”  That process, and the current quest for input, is producing a long and varied wish list.

But in this brainstorming phase, the sky’s the limit, and McKinney is eager for people to visit the website and complete a form with reactions and suggestions, or get in touch with him through his e-mail address, estuaryone@aol.com.  “We’ll need a project that the residents are enthusiastic about and RIOC is enthusiastic about, so that elected officials will fund it.  We want everybody to know what’s going on and to feel that their issues are being addressed.”

In conversations with Island leaders and others, McKinney has compiled a long wish list ranging from the whimsical to the downright practical.  Ferry service has been mentioned frequently.  There happens to be a disused ferry slip on the east channel just south of the fence marking the start of Southpoint.  At one time it was just a short walk from City Hospital, which was torn down in the 1980s, though blocks of stone remain on the site. McKinney says that Tom Fox, the entrepreneur who operates those yellow water taxis that zoom up and down the river, estimates a slip would cost $350,000.  But once it’s in place, Fox’s organization sees serving the Island, perhaps including special events like an “art cruise” that might also visit Socrates Sculpture Park and the Noguchi Museum, both nearby in Queens.

Another wish-list item is a marina, but McKinney says currents, at up to eight feet per second (5.5 mph), are probably too swift and the tides too extreme, even in the east channel. He says every plan involving water typically shows a marina, as early plans for a residential Roosevelt Island did, but thinks it’s not likely to work here.  On the other hand, some supervised boating might be possible, and a provision for fishing is likely.

Ultimately, it will be McKinney’s job to pare the wish lists down to something fundable.
“The potential solutions we will present in August and September will be kind of nuanced. It’s not just what we want.  It’s what we think we can afford and get funders for, and what we think we can maintain.”

Maintainability is, in fact, a key issue.  McKinney, recalling his days as the administrator of Manhattan’s Riverside Park, says, “I’ve built things in the past that I couldn’t maintain.  
I know better now.  We have to come to terms with a balance between what we want and what we can afford to maintain.”  He says Southpoint Park will be designed to an operating budget.  “From the very first day a project is completed, you must have in place someone who is knowledgeable, especially to care for plant materials.  They have to be watered-weeded-mulched-and-pruned.”  He runs those last words together like someone who’s been there, done that.

Operating funds are likely to come from a mix of sources – government, philanthropic, corporate, and “revenues generated on site” – a lease for a restaurant would be an example.

At the September meetings on the Island, those attending will get scorecards on which they can react to aspects of the three possible plans, which McKinney describes as “graphic outlines with postcard-like views and narratives.”

Those meetings will trigger a two-month process aimed at settling on “a preferred plan that will give the community and public officials feasible and highly desirable options for the park, as well as budgets for construction and operation,” according to TPL’s press release on the project.  At its end, in November, the “preferred plan” will be presented, with a first-phase schedule of construction likely to cost “something like $5 million.”

A lot is involved, McKinney points out.  The site will need extension of electrical power, telephone service, sewers, and water lines.  Decisions have to be made on shoreline stabilization – whether to rely on rip-rap like that now absorbing the wakes of passing boats, or to add a seawall, like that around the rest of Roosevelt Island, in some areas of the new project.

Just how fast construction can go will depend on the pace of fundraising.  That means the 2007 target, as well as the budget of $30 million, are approximations.  According to TPL Director of Public Affairs Clark, TPL will be there through the entire process – “through planning, implementation, and construction.”  She says fundraising for the design stage has already begun.

McKinney is clearly enthusiastic about this assignment.  “It’s an extraordinary site.  You can sit alone next to the water, then go to the top of a rubble pile, stabilized as a promontory, and have panoramic views.  At Southpoint, you can watch the sun come up and go down.  Then you can watch the lights of the City as they come on with nightfall.  There’s no better way to see the fireworks.  People like to watch from private yachts but, in Southpoint, we have the biggest boat of all – a veritable cruise ship.”  He says that even though the Independence Day event is only once a year, any park design will accommodate it.  He says that while the sloping land south of the Renwick Ruin lends itself to performance events, a fixed band shell would probably be a mistake.  For flexibility, he says, “You want one that rises up when you need it – a temporary structure that goes away.”

Clark describes the RIOC-TPL partnership as one “whose time has come.  It’s the right moment for it to take hold and move forward.”  McKinney says, “TPL is about the best partner you could have.  They’ve been able to make deals happen.”

TPL has a website that describes its work at www.tpl.org.

Click here for a some basic facts about the Southpoint site and a brief overview of Roosevelt Island’s history.