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.
My only issue, as stated above, is traffic. None of those streets even comes close to what is needed. Not even one traffic light from Hamilton Ave to the site and through a huge recreation area. It is going to be a nightmare and dangerous. It doesn’t look like any thought went into it. I think it would have been better over near Home Depot or Costco.
I believe there is a plan for ferry service from Manhattan. That will be nice, and if they make a small park nearby for eating lunch all the better, still, it could have been much nicer.
But worrying about car traffic in Brooklyn is like worrying about sand in the desert. Cars are here, people use them and that’s that. Relatively few people are going to take the bus to IKEA, the very fit will bicycle I guess. But 95% will use their private car. It ain’t Manhattan or Brooklyn Heights.
right, if they’re going to do this then they should be forced to ship in their goods instead of trucking them in. they should also offer free ferry service to their store from manhattan and other points in brooklyn to dissuade street traffic. if not then red hook is in for an ultra nightmare with traffic, and as said above, whoever rubber stamped this fiasco should pay heavily.
just check out the parking lot and loading areas at the new jersey store. it is mindboggling that this would come to brooklyn.
IKEA belongs under the BQE or Gowanus Expressway. It does not belong on a very beautiful stretch of waterfront with open ocean views.
In the 19th century, waterfront meant commerce and business. So drydocks and piers were logically built along the waterfront and people built their houses inland. A lot of maritime business has gone the way of the horse drawn carriage so there is no reason today not to use the waterfront for recreation and mixed-use development. Even in Red Hook, the waterfront is magnificent. What is pathetic is the limited vision and optimism of the planning commission and other city officials.
I agree-
Ikea sells aesthetically well designed furniture that is also designed to be thrown out in several years. How many times a week do you walk down the street and see some piece of Ikea furniture lying on the sidewalk waiting to be carted to a landfill?
Wait, landfill? Garbage can easily have nine lives here. People in BK will take almost any free ratty old thing home with them.
I see both sides of the Ikea debate. I love Redhook- out on the pier, those shutters, the view- it’s like vacation. I was really rooting for it but with the transportation issues it seems almost impossible. Long before Fairway, when I would go to the arts weekends, I would drive. I don’t know. The store is ugly…
It is concerning that the access to red hook by car is so awful. Bumpy streets, few traffic lights, bad lane markings, bad road signs.
If there is going to be the amount of traffic that goes to the new jersey ikea on a daily basis to red hook ikea then there will be a constant jam from the vicinity of the battery park tunnel areas (already a crap place to drive anyway) stretching all the way to ikea, with people off down side streets because their navi said there was a short cut..
For a store that claims to be environmental thats pretty bad. They should have used some of their tax break money to pay the city to re-think the road access. Build a freaking flyover right off the BQE over the warehouses and down to the IKEA or something..
I am moderately pro IKEA, but I could be convinced otherwise if people could point out another area in Manhattan, Brooklyn or Queens that it should have gone. I always thought some of the empty lots in Vinegar Hill would have been good, but I don’t kow if there were any big enough lots for the footprint.
Also, 11.29 — is there any truth to that about the food vendors in the park? If you are speculating that IKEA is behind the effort, just say so, but if you have seen press on this issue point it out too.
What we should focus on is figuring out who at the City Planning Commission is responsible for this calamity so that they can be fired and replaced with someone with vision.
Actually, I think I will let Ikea handle the traffic calming. Lord knows they have enough money to handle things that would result in bad public relations. And I will continue with my plan to kill Ikea. I have devised a Swedish meatball catapult that will turn Ikea into a pile of mush.