City Will Start Accepting Proposals for Underground Lowline Space

November 20, 2015

Lowline Lab via 6sqft

In 2009, James Ramsey and Dan Barasch started planning a solar-powered subterranean park on the Lower East Side, the underground equivalent of the High Line. They set their sites on the 60,000-square-foot abandoned Essex Street Trolley Terminal below Delancey Street and named their project The Lowline. Now, six years later, they’ve launched the Lowline Lab, “a high-tech, miniaturized precursor to the city’s first underground park,” as 6sqft put it in a recent interview with Ramsey and Barasch. Located in a vacant warehouse on Essex Street, the Lab most certainly served its purpose, as The Lo-Down is reporting that the city and MTA have finally agreed to accept proposals for the space. The Economic Development Corporation (EDC) will release on Monday a Request for Expressions of Interest (RFEI), followed by a briefing next month with Community Board 3.

Lowline sunlight
Rendering via The Lowline

lowline, James Ramsey, Dan Barasch, underground park, Entrance to the Lowline, lowline renderings, raad architecture

The site is currently owned by the city, but the MTA has a long-term lease for the space. The MTA has expressed no issues with the Lowline plans as long as it doesn’t cause them a financial burden. Earlier this week, an EDC spokesperson was quoted in the Wall Street Journal saying that plans for the site “would require a formal bidding process, which is needed to determine a myriad of factors—from establishing construction costs to identifying operational needs and capacity—all of which determine whether a project is appropriate and feasible.”

[Via The Lo-Down]

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