Mayor Eric Adams and Gov. Kathy Hochul set forth a new vision for the Brooklyn Marine Terminal on Tuesday.
The mayor announced the city has assumed full control of the 122-acre waterfront in an effort to modernize the port and to create a mixed-use community hub.
“The modernization of the Brooklyn Marine Terminal is part of a long-term plan to transform the New York shoreline into the harbor of the future,” Adams said.
“We want to explore mixed use development opportunities, including housing and the 21st century, for deserving this great city and it will be driven by a robust community-driven process,” Hochul said.
The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey previously operated the site.
As part of the agreement, the Port Authority assumed full control of the Howland Hook Terminal on Staten Island.
Staten Island elected officials are applauding the move.
“It employs hundreds of people with well-paying jobs, and we would like to see it expand. That’s why we supported last year’s efforts to provide a significant capital investment to enhance and to improve the terminal,” Staten Island Borough President Vito Fossella wrote in a statement.
But Rep. Jerry Nadler believes this is the wrong move.
“If you’re going to have the entire port basically on the Newark Bay, you have to truck everything and that trucking increases carbon, carbon pollution forever. It increases asthma and increases effluence coming out and increases carbon, which we don’t need for climate change,” Nadler said.
Included in the revitalization is an $80 million upgrade to piers 7, 8 and 10.
The New York City Economic Development Corporation will manage operations at the site.
The corporation’s president and CEO Andrew Kimball said part of the focus will be reducing truck traffic.
“As the site already gets about 30,000 trucks off the roads annually. We need to increase that exponentially. We need to focus on goods that are coming to the five boroughs or to the north to the northeast. We need to focus on goods like cold storage and are cold containers that can be stored here and then barged up to places like Hunts Point that deliver 25% of everything we eat every day,” he said.
Hochul said transportation of perishable merchandise has contributed to traffic and quality of life issues in Red Hook. She announced a $15 million commitment to a future cold storage facility at the marine terminal.