Greenpoint’s waterfront esplanade comes into focus

A winding waterfront esplanade padding Greenpoint along the East River is beginning to come into focus as the private developments bankrolling its creation move forward.

Former Mayor Bloomberg’s 2005 rezoning of North Williamsburg and Greenpoint required all developers of the glassy residential buildings that now dominate the waterfront to build a section of esplanade on their own dime. That’s already been largely realized in developments surrounding the North Williamsburg waterfront like Douglaston Development’s Edge towers, but is now beginning to take shape in Brooklyn’s most northern neighborhood.

When Mack Real Estate and Palin Enterprises’s 40-story Greenpoint tower The Greenpoint is finished in the spring, its 29,500-square-foot waterfront park will be the first to be complete in Greenpoint as part of the rezoning agreement, the Wall Street Journal reports.

The park will include a 4,000-square-foot playground as well as a walkway to a ferry stop. The title of the park will be turned over to the city by the project’s developers before they obtain a certificate of occupancy for the project.

Under the assumption that every waterfront site in the area will be redeveloped, The Greenpoint’s esplanade will eventually link with those of its neighbors and neighbors’ neighbors in Greenpoint Landing, Halcyon Development’s planned multi-building project at Quay and West streets, and others yet to be announced.

“Most people know it is coming in bits and pieces, at the end of the day there will be an esplanade,” Nicholas Molinari, chief of planning and neighborhood development at the Parks Department, told WSJ. “We are super excited to see the developments moving forward with new open space.”

The 2005 rezoning also saw the city promise to improve waterfront parks in the area and create a new one—Bushwick Inlet Park. The city is still working to develop the full 28-acre park. It acquired the park’s final parcel in 2016, and earmarked $17.5 million for its development in late October.

• Public-Private Brooklyn Waterfront Project Is Starting To Bloom [WSJ]
• How NYC's decade of rezoning changed the City of Industry [Curbed]