BCPA Will Lead Guided Tours to Offer Details about Resiliency Plans
The Battery Park City Authority (BPCA) plans to continue community engagement on its North/West Resiliency Project through the end of October, with a series of four site walks and an extended deadline for submission of public comment.
The North/West Resiliency Project envisions protective measures along the Esplanade (and extending into Tribeca) to address risks associated with storm surge and sea level rise. These plans, which are now approximately 30 percent complete and projected to cost roughly $630 million, are divided into seven “reaches”—discrete stretches of waterfront and adjacent upland acreage. The outdoor site walks will be led by members of the BPCA’s design and engineering teams.
Next Thursday, October 19, from 3:30pm to 6pm, the first public walk will cover Reaches 1 through 4, encompassing Tribeca, West Street, the North Esplanade behind Stuyvesant High School, Rockefeller Park and its adjacent Esplanade, and Belvedere Plaza. The same ground will be covered a second time on Saturday, October 21, from 10am to noon, in the second walk.
Also on Saturday, October 21, this time from 1pm to 3pm, site walk #3 will examine Reaches 5, 6, and 7, traversing North Cove Marina, the South Esplanade, and South Cove. This material will be replicated when the series concludes on Thursday, October 26, with the final site walk. (If any of these dates are cancelled because of weather, Sunday, October 22 is the rain date.)
These guided walks are free; register in advance here.
Members of the public are invited to review the ongoing design process for the North/West Battery Park City Resiliency Project and contribute reactions and questions. Comments will be accepted through the end of this month.
A June 26 public meeting at Stuyvesant High School about this major project drew more than 200 attendees. The BPCA and its design team are now refining plans, with a goal of reaching a threshold of 60 percent design completion by next spring, with final designs circulated late next year or early in 2025. Construction is expected to begin in 2025 and continue through 2028. The BPCA is planning another public meeting in November to update residents about the design process.
In late September, Community Board 1 enacted a resolution containing more than 100 questions about the North/West Resiliency Project, raising concerns about design features, schedules, costs, logics, quality-of-life impacts, and efficacy. (Click here to read the resolution and questions, and please note that this is the third resolution and begins on page 5.) The same resolution requested that “BPCA provide as part of their next public presentation a description of what changes have and have not been incorporated in the updated designs based on the public’s comments to date,” and emphasized the “need to provide a holistic understanding of the resiliency plans for the entirety of the park clarifying how each area (Reach) ties to the next and how plans interface with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ and the City’s resiliency plans.”