Whose Wharf Is It, Anyway?

At its meeting tonight, the Battery Park City Committee of Community Board 1 (CB1) will hear an update about the future of North Cove Marina from Callie Haines, a senior vice president at Brookfield Properties, the giant office and shopping mall developer that was awarded control of the marina (which is legally mapped as parkland) in a controversial 2015 decision by the Battery Park City Authority (BPCA).

As a condition of its lease, Brookfield is required to operate community programs such as a sailing school, club, and summer camp, similar to those pioneered by Michael Fortenbaugh, the local resident and small businessman who brought these amenities to North Cove during the 1990s and operated there for more than two decades, but was removed from the Marina as a result of the BPCA’s 2015 decision to give the facility to Brookfield.

To implement the requirements for community programming contained in its lease, Brookfield (and its subcontractor, International Global Yachting) recruited the Offshore Sailing School to replace Mr. Fortenbaugh’s operation. In some respects, this was a surprising choice. Brookfield’s original proposal for operating the North Cove explicitly called for retaining Mr. Fortenbaugh, even going so far as to propose subsidizing his operation with reduced rent. But once the firm was designated to operate the Marina, this plan was abandoned, for reasons that were never publicly explained.

Ninfa Segarra, the chair of CB1’s Battery Park City Committee, observes, “the community had a successful, local business run by Mr. Fortenbaugh. He was able to revive and expand the school,” after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.

The Offshore Sailing School’s attempts to replicate Mr. Fortenbaugh’s community sailing programs at North Cove never gained traction with Lower Manhattan residents, in spite of a limited program of free sailing lessons in 2015 and 2016, a series of charitable events, and high-profile participation in last summer’s Americas Cup events in the waters surrounding Lower Manhattan. After a two-year struggle, these efforts ultimately failed, and Offshore decided in November to withdraw from North Cove Marina and the shutter its other locations in New York Harbor.

Tammy Meltzer, co-chair of CB1’s Battery Park City Committee, says, “unfortunately, Offshore Sailing was never able to get up to full steam and offer the wide array of services promised or actively make community connections that existed prior. When North Cove Marina was operated as one entity, they spent years actively connecting to a wide swath of the stakeholders in the boating world and Lower Manhattan, attracting boaters, corporations, community, families, tourists and students alike.”

This would appear to raise the question of whether Brookfield might resurrect the original terms of its proposal and enlist Mr. Fortenbaugh to manage community sailing at North Cove Marina once again. For reasons that have not been made clear, this seems to be unlikely. At the time of Offshore Sailing’s decision to pull out, David Cheikin, Brookfield’s vice president of leasing, said, “we have identified a new top-tier operator and are working on an agreement to ensure a seamless transition and a world-class community sailing school operation at North Cove Marina for years to come.” And a second source directly familiar with the situation says that neither Brookfield nor International Global Yachting has approached Mr. Fortenbaugh about restarting the programs that he once oversaw at the Marina.

In the months since Offshore Sailing decided to withdraw from North Cove, the BPCA has professed a willingness to consider public input about the future of public sailing at North Cove. At the Authority’s November 9 Open Community Meeting, BPCA president Shari Hyman told residents, “we’re open to hearing what other programming you’d like to have from the sailing school.” A BPCA source say that the Authority has not received any public response on this subject.

But the November, 2016 meeting is predated by a unanimous resolution from CB1, in December, 2015, calling upon the BPCA to extend Mr. Fortenbaugh’s contract at North Cove and revamp the bidding process to operate the facility so that greater weight would be assigned to community programming. A few days later, Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer wrote to the BPCA, saying, “I ask you to consider the interest of current community-based program operators,” in a reference to Mr. Fortenbaugh, “and to require the winning bidder to devise a plan to give them the maximum possible chance to stay at North Cove Marina.” A week after Ms. Brewer’s letter, a coalition of five elected officials representing Lower Manhattan wrote to the BPCA, demanding that it comply with the CB1 resolution. In the midst of these actions, more than 300 residents gathered on the Esplanade to protest the BPCA’s decision to remove Mr. Fortenbaugh from North Cove. These various expressions of public will did nothing to change the BPCA’s decision.

Ms. Segarra notes that, “the decision to hire Offshore was made against the wishes of the community. We hope they do not duplicate that mistake by choosing a new operator in secret. BPCA has oversight responsibility and should ensure that the community receive the benefit of this amenity.”

Ms. Meltzer says, “I look forward to the presentation and to seeing the programming and community options available. Thus far, the new approach of renting/subletting out the sailing school and club has not come to be a successful model for the community.”

The Battery Park City Committee of CB1 will meet tonight in the theater at Asphalt Green (212 North End Avenue, near the corner of Murray Street), starting at 6:00 pm. All interested members of the public are invited to attend.