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18 pages • Vol. 42, No. 18 • May 10–16, 2019
SOFT OPENING Singaporean developer unveils new marina at Brooklyn Bridge Park
By Colin Mixson
Brooklyn Paper
A city scheme to house homeless
families within a pair of Fourth
Avenue residential developments
was met with outrage during a public
meeting at Seventh Avenue’s
John Jay Educational Campus on
May 1, where locals shouted, heckled,
and booed at presenters from
the Department of Homeless Services
and its chosen operator for
the upcoming refuge.
And it’s not because they don’t
like homeless people — they’re
just not willing to pay developers
to house them, according to
one Park Slope man.
“You want to pit the working
class people of this city against the
homeless,” said Bo Samajopoulos.
“This is not about the homeless
people — Brand Lander and
Mayor Bill de Blasio are bailing
out developers.”
Park Slope Councilman Brad
Lander organized the meeting to
discuss the city’s plan to install
shelters in buildings at 535 and
555 Fourth Ave. slated to open this
fall. The properties were originally
built as market-rate rentals,
before officials at the Department
of Homeless Services worked out
a deal with developers to house
destitute families there.
ONE°15 Brooklyn Marina
Bossert Hotel plans soft opening
Historic Downtown inn to reopen with 280 rooms, rooftop restaurant
The neighboring shelters will be
run by nonprofit shelter operator
Win and will feature a combined
253 units, along with childcare services
and programs designed to
help get down-and-out New Yorkers
back on their feet and into permanent
housing.
Both buildings will feature 24-
hour security and surveillance,
and will be offered exclusively
to families, with the majority of
residents expected to be women
and children, according to Jackie
Bray, first deputy commissioner
at the Department of Homeless
Services.
At the meeting, questions about
the shelters’ effect on property values
were quick to arise, with one
Park Slope resident asking why
the refugees couldn’t be sited in
a less gentrified area.
“Why are the shelters being
taken out of areas now marked
for gentrification, like Sunset Park,
and moved into areas that have already
been gentrified,” asked Father
Joe DeVincenzo.
Another woman asked about
what effect the shelter’s pint-sized
residents would have on local
schools, claiming nearby PS 124
is already near capacity.
Bray, Lander, and former City
Council Speaker Christine Quinn,
Working out
Councilman Mathieu Eugene works his biceps to celebrate the new adult-recreation
area that opened in Prospect Park on May 3. Read more on page 7.
who now serves as Win’s chief
executive officer, struggled to
address concerns expressed by
residents as their audience at the
packed high school auditorium
shouted over them, and Quinn in
particular was routinely drowned
out by a chorus of boos.
The Homeless Services official
claimed there’s “zero research”
showing shelters reduce
property values, and said the city
bases its decision to site a shelter
in a community based on the number
of existing shelters there and
its current population of homeless
residents.
By Kevin Duggan
Brooklyn Paper
They’re setting sail.
A Singaporean developer has
opened a new private marina in
Brooklyn Bridge Park.
Conglomerate SUTL Group
has started the soft opening of its
ONE°15 Brooklyn Marina — its
first such project in the U.S. — on
eight acres of waterfront between
piers 4 and 5 at the price tag of
more than $28 million this month,
and will fully open the wharf in
June, which will berth up to 100
boats and offer space for casual
captains at the first new marina
in decades, according to its developer.
“ONE°15 is proud to bring to
fruition the first new marina in
New York Harbor in a generation
and to welcome water enthusiasts
to the calmest waters in the New
York Harbor basin,” SUTL Chief
Arthur Tay said.
In addition to its Singapore
docks, SUTL also has landings
in Malaysia, Sri Lanka, the Maldives,
and Vietnam, according to
its website.
The semi-private Brooklyn
Bridge Park Corporation put up
a request for proposals to develop
the river space back in 2014, which
Michigander maritime company
Edgewater Resources accepted before
SUTL took over the bid the following
year, according to Lau.
The Kings County jetties will
host space for boats ranging in
size from dinghies to 200-foot
vessels and they will keep space
for their community dock where
casual boaters can launch into the
East River on more casual watercraft
such as kayaks, according to
the company’s website.
The organization will also donate
two percent of its marina services
revenue to support free and
low-cost community boating, ac-
Photo by Trey Pentecost
cording to the site .
The wharf is accessible to people
with disabilities and the company
has a sailing club with several
levels of expensive membership
packages, starting at $400 per year
for access to a clubhouse, barbecues,
and social gatherings, all
the way to a $1,200 full membership,
allowing for unlimited
sails as crew.
The club is already hosting its
first sailing race this week, the
company’s Deputy Chief Executive
Officer Estelle Lau told this
paper.
Boats are currently moored at
the pier and Lau expects dozens
more to come from shores further
south in the warmer months.
“We have 15-20 seasonal boats
and larger boats will come up from
Florida will be coming in through
the next few weeks and months,”
she said. “We have dozens of
inquiries.”
The company will finish up construction
in the coming months
and plans to open a clubhouse
on a docked boat some time in
the next season, which kicks off
next spring.
But to keep the boats steady
while docked, engineers behind
the project installed deep draft steel
barges — so-called wave attenuators
— to calm the tides and
choppy waters.
The company worked with city,
state, and federal agencies, including
the state’s Department of Environmental
Conservation, U.S.
Army Core of Engineers, and the
Metropolitan Transportation Authority,
to ensure it built the pier in
an environmentally friendly way
and without interfering with the
R train, which crosses the river
from Brooklyn Heights to Manhattan
in an underground tunnel
below the location, according to
the quay’s manager.
“ONE°15 Brooklyn’s operational
team worked closely with
engineers, architects, and its Singapore
based ownership unit to
maximize the usage of this space,
conveniently located off the banks
of Brooklyn Heights,” said John
Winson.
By Kevin Duggan
Brooklyn Paper
How suite it is!
The Bossert Hotel is set to reopen
at the end of this summer — some six
years later than its owners originally
planned.
The swanky Montague Street lodge
will have a soft opening at the end of
August and be in full swing by the beginning
of September, its new manager
told Community Board 2’s Health, Environment,
and Social Services Committee
at its May 1 meeting.
“We’re scheduled to soft open around
the end of August, so the official opening
will be around Labor Day,” said general
manager Aliya Huey.
The 110-year-old inn sits at the corner
of Hicks Street and will reopen with
280 rooms, a rooftop restaurant and bar
with an outdoor deck on the 14th floor
looking out toward the Brooklyn Promenade,
two grand ballrooms, and a café
and bar located in the ground floor lobby,
according to Huey.
The freshly-minted manager also told
the committee the hotel will employ approximately
180 people.
Developer David Bistricer of Clipper
Equity and real-estate tycoon Joseph
Chetrit bought the Italian Renaissance
style property for $81 million from
the Jehovah’s Witnesses in 2012 and
initially planned to reopen it the following
year.
Restoring the building — once known
as Brooklyn’s Waldorf Astoria — to its
former glory took longer than anticipated,
the man managing the makeover
told this paper last year .
The hotel hit another bump when the
owners parted ways with their hotel managers,
the Argentine firm Fën Hotels,
which also ran the Dazzler Brooklyn on
Flatbush Avenue Ext. at Tillary Street,
which has since been renamed the Tillary
Hotel under managers Jam 26 Hotels
and which Chetrit has a majority stake
in, according to The Real Deal .
Huey also heads up the Downtown
hotel and told the community group she
will be in charge of both establishments
under the same management company,
but added that the luxe Brooklyn Heights
lodge will target more well-heeled patrons.
“The Tillary has more of a younger
crowd, whereas Bossert will be higher
rates. It will be more corporate clients
and we’re aiming toward a five-star hotel,”
she said.
The committee gave its purely advisory
recommendation for the State Liquor
Authority to approve Huey’s liquor
license application for the hotel’s watering
holes, which had expired due to the
long delays in the inn’s opening.
Photo by Colin Mixson
Father Joe DeVincenzo wanted to know how the shelters
would affect local property values.
Park Slopers blast homeless shelter plan
Residents question city proposal for neighboring buildings on Fourth Avenue
See SHELTER on page 8
The long-shuttered Bossert Hotel will reopen its doors at the end
of August under the management of the Tillary Hotel, its chief Aliya
Huey told a Community Board 2 committee on May 1.
Photo by Kevin Duggan
Singaporean conglomerate SUTL will fully open its new ONE°15 Brooklyn Marina in June,
offering space for 100 vessels and recreational boating in between Brooklyn Bridge Park’s
piers 4 and 5.
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