It has been a bad week for New York parks awaiting fancy new amenities. Yesterday a judge put an injunction on a restaurant in Union Square and, the Times reports, on Monday a planed Fieldhouse/Velodrome for Brooklyn Bridge Park died a quiet death in a planning meeting. And that is with $50 million in funding from a mysterious rich guy! Still, you haven't heard the last of the idea.
The Fieldhouse/Velodrome, which would have lived on Furman Street off Pier 5, was a total surprise when it was announced last April. That's partially because of the fact that 47-year-old billionaire Joshua Rechnitz was offering to front the full $40 million cost (which he later upped to $50 million). Still, this being Brooklyn, folks found things to complain about with the plan ("Where are [the people who would use it] going to come from?" "This would be devastating to the southern Heights!"). And yet? Apparently that wasn't what killed the plan.
It just turned out that there were too many issues with getting what Rechnitz wanted in that space at that budget. “You can’t build a facility of this nature, at this site, at this budget,” Greg Brooks, the executive director of N.Y.C. Fieldhouse, the nonprofit group behind the project, told the Times. Things like the need for an "aesthetic" roof were making the project just too pricey.
Still, a velodrome may come to the city yet (and we aren't talking about the proposed Knightsbridge one). “We’re very excited and eager to find a new home for this recreation center and velodrome. The funding remains intact.” We look forward to another surprise announcement!
As for the space where the fieldhouse was going to live? According to a rep from Brooklyn Bridge Park:
before Mr. Rechnitz’s gift, the site, now occupied by a one-story concrete warehouse, had been planned as a garage for park-maintenance equipment, as a storage area for recreational boats and as restrooms. Officials were looking to return to that plan, she said.
