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.
Red Hook is a post war dump that has been polluted and destroyed by generations of industry’s that eventually folded and left. Red Hook is lucky it has good and socially conscience retailers like Ikea building and bringing jobs to the neib.
Nimby’s you can cry all you want but your neighb is no different than any other part of Brooklyn that has been forgotten trashed and destroyed by the post war desertion of people to the suburbs.
If it wasn’t for Ikea you’d have a dirty empty crime haven play ground for crack users and gangsters like a lot of other spots along the water.
Building a giant, windowless building on waterfront property with wonderful views is not good planning. Building a mixed-use center with apartments and restaurants and a a marina and other amenities would have been about a hundred years more progressive.
The Planning Commission was completely out to lunch as regards Red Hook. It is their fault and they should be ashamed.
10:24 — let’s see, one truck delivering groceries to 25 households in a day vs. 25 extra cars on the road per day buying groceries. you really think the truck is worse for the environment? as for the noise, if you can’t tolerate a few daytime minutes of sound from an idling engine, you must find city living excruciating.
10:11
Buy online and have huge delivery trucks idle-ing double parked on your local street for 20 minutes blocking traffic and spewing fuel while they deliver your goods?
A few of my neighbors get Fresh Direct regularly. The noisy refrigerator truck sits on the street for a long time grinding and belching polution. Buying online is not a solution for traffic – you’ve just brought the problem closer to you.
Dude, if you want to be an advocate that people take seriously, lose the 19th century mustache!
The best kind of economic development is incremental and organic. Imposing a monolithic structure that is accessible only by car (basically) and contributes nothing to the neighborhood’s vibrancy is not sustainable economic development. It may (or may not) bring a few jobs to folks in the neighborhood in the short term, but it will not make the neighborhood a better place to live. In the long term, only livable places will thrive socially and economically.
It’s an awful building, and the traffic increase will cause a mess. All of South Brooklyn surface traffic funnels through Hicks or Clinton north to Atlantic, and there’s only 3rd Ave to the south. Buy online.
Ikea will be worthless once the Atlantic Yards are built
Are you kidding me? The Hook was dead until Fairway and Ikea. This will eventually (decades out) bring transportation (think 2nd Ave. subway) and smoother roads (need that right away). Our working class and frugal individuals need decent inexpensive furniture without treking to L.I. or Jersey.
In the coming decades, I think there will still be room in the Hook for cultural and residential development on or off the waterfront.