[Newly released rendering of Thor's latest Coney Island plan, courtesy Thinkwell]
Yesterday, we received an email from a spokesman for developer Thor Equities:
After listening to the comments, questions and concerns of members of the Coney Island community, as well as people all over the country and throughout the world, Thor Equities has completely eliminated the residential component of its proposed plan. Thor will instead focus on amusement and entertainment uses worthy of Coney Island's spectacular legacy.Wow. After all the back and forth over the future of Coney Island, it seems Thor has outright abandoned its plans for high rise housing that had caused much local controversy in its Coney Island 2.1 plan. Or have they?
Well, er, sort of. It seems Thor has scrapped the apartment buildings in favor of three high-rise hotels, including time shares, to go along with the new water park, amusements, restaurants, shops, movie theaters and everything else that will be coming to Coney Island sometime this century. New EDC president Bob Lieber is less than impressed: "He [Thor's Joseph Sitt] came in last week and presented a plan that had essentially the same density, but dressed it up with hotels and time shares."
Looks like this one won't be wrapping up anytime soon.
· Coney Island Plan Is Scaled Back, but Critics Are Skeptical [NYTimes]
· Coney Developer Drops Condo Plan [NYSun]
· Here's Coney Island 2.1 [Curbed]