Red Hook IKEA: Planning at its Worst?
Was allowing IKEA to build its gargantuan Red Hook store the worst decision the City Planning Commission had made concerning the waterfront in the past 20 to 30 years, as Municipal Arts Society prez Kent Barwick posits? That’s just one of the many arguments Red Hook Civic Association Co-Chair John McGettrick uses to buttress claims…
Was allowing IKEA to build its gargantuan Red Hook store the worst decision the City Planning Commission had made concerning the waterfront in the past 20 to 30 years, as Municipal Arts Society prez Kent Barwick posits? That’s just one of the many arguments Red Hook Civic Association Co-Chair John McGettrick uses to buttress claims that the Swedish retailer will have all manner of negative effects on his neighborhood. In a Daily News op-ed, McGettrick outlines a legion of other objections, including that the store’s location across the street from a park will result in traffic accidents and an uptick in asthma rates; that the build destroyed a historic shipyard; that IKEA is an anti-union employer and hasn’t guaranteed jobs to Red Hook residents; and that the city ignored opposition to the retailer’s plans because of the chain’s powerful lobbyists. In essence, McGettrick’s piece makes the case that the city is once again serving Red Hook with a raw deal cloaked in the guise of economic development, and that zoning changes would go a long way to spurring the neighborhood’s revitalization. Think he’s got a point, or do you think on balance that IKEA will be good for the Hook?
Problems Will Stack up for Red Hook With Ikea in Store [NY Daily News] GMAP
Photo of under-construction IKEA by Gatto Arancione.
Wait- I thought that AY was going to ruin everything! It’s Ikea?
Ikea gave some Christmas presents to the kids, promised to take job applications a few weeks earlier and won the project community over. What ULURP process. It was over before it began.
The community is not ill-prepared. Ikea is ill prepared. These will be Ikea’s problems to solve as the bad press they create will effect their image and the cars stuck on the highway will have an effect on their bottom dollar.
How should we prepare for Ikea’s arrival?
…bake them a pie?
Perhaps, right on the waterfront is not the best location for Ikea, but Red Hook needs development – any development besides rusting, abandoned plots and NYCHA housing projects. Also, when Ikea went up in Elizabeth, NJ, so too did newly-paved access roads from NJ Turnpike and Routes 1/9.
Where were all you folks during the ULURP process? Drinking lattes at Baked? Getting drunk at Bait and Tackle?
All this diadactic discourse is useless. Ikea is coming and the community is woefully ill-prepared and dare I say a little to smug to deal with it.
IKEA will create traffic problems of epic proportions throughout NW Brooklyn. There’s just no way the current road system in and around Red Hook can handle IKEA traffic without totally overloading local streets in the Hook and creating a gridlock nightmare on the BQE, Hamilton Ave, Prospect Expwy, 3rd Ave, Court St, Clinton St, 9th St, 4th Ave etc etc. When an IKEA was built in the Philly suburbs, the problems were so bad that a new highway interchange had to be built to accomodate the volume — but not until local residents and businesses had already suffered about 18mos of chaos and delays.
On the other hand, IKEA will provide good jobs in a neighborhood with severe unemployment issues.
Ikea may be a great store, and Red Hook may have been a dump, but neither of those points mean that an Ikea on the waterfront in Red Hook is a good idea.
This a massive failure in planning, only rivaled by all the other massive failures in planning in New York city.
actually it should’ve gone to park slope…4th ave would have been a much better location…or sunset park next to the bqe on 3rd ave.
If there is going to be no road changes, then its going to be a disaster. I presume there will be paved streets, better lights, and such. Not that I know it as well as red hook, but doesnt some of the waterfront stretches around Sunset park seem like they could handle an Ikea?
Who cares? We are talking about Red Hook, not some desirable location. I am sorry that Red Hook residents are priced out of better neighborhoods, but NYCers need a location for the Ikea. You can’t expect to put it in Park Slope.