April 4 Meeting Seeks Community Input on Plans for Wagner Park Pavilion and Rockefeller Park Esplanade
As the Battery Park City Authority (BPCA) moves ahead with the reconstruction of Wagner Park, the agency is also beginning the process of envisioning uses for the new pavilion that will serve as its centerpiece. Last October, the BPCA issued a “request for expressions of interest” (RFEI) for potential operators who may rent space in the structure, with an eye toward opening a restaurant there. An RFEI is a solicitation used by New York government agencies to gauge interest among possible vendors or suppliers in advance of a formal procurement process (known as a “request for proposals,” or RFP).
The BPCA is now on the verge of issuing this RFP, which will bring it a step closer to final decisions about what sort of operator may eventually set up shop in Wagner Park. Before this threshold is crossed, however, the Battery Park City Committee of Community Board 1 (CB1) will on April 4 to discuss—and possibly enshrine in a resolution—the goals residents hope to realize in the selection of a business tenant for the pavilion.
Some initial objectives formulated by the Wagner Park Pavilion Working Group (a panel of residents who have been brainstorming about priorities) include reasonably priced food service options and a menu that emphasizes locally sourced ingredients, along with outdoor and rooftop seating available to the general public. The group wants to avoid loud music and frequent closure of the facility for private events.
For the structure as a whole, the committee is proposing that the facade to be outfitted with living walls (vertical gardens that consist of plantings), and at least some of its power to come from solar panels and a small-scale wind turbine. The group is also suggesting that the building incorporate “mass timber” (also known as engineered wood) in place of steel girders, because this material has a much lighter ecological impact than metal beams.
This eco-conscious approach dovetails with the BPCA’s initial RFEI, which urged proposers to build their plans around “sustainability guidelines and objectives” and “carbon-reduction and energy saving targets.”
Separately, the April 4 meeting of CB1’s Battery Park City Committee will also review another section of BPCA resiliency planning: Reaches Two, Three, and Four of the North/West Resiliency Project, which encompass sections of the esplanade that stretch from the Brookfield Ferry Terminal to the north side of Stuyvesant High School.