Plan for mini beach and waterfront esplanade at Bushwick Inlet Park moves forward
Rendering courtesy of Abel Bainnson Butz, LLP.
The city’s plan to bring a waterfront park and small beach to Greenpoint is moving forward. The Parks and Waterfront Committee of Brooklyn’s Community Board 1 earlier this month approved a revised design from New York City Parks and architect firm Abel Bainnson Butz for a 1.9-acre passive park at Bushwick Inlet Park. The nearly $10 million project redevelops and remediates a section of land known a the Motiva parcel, which is bounded by Kent Avenue and Quay Street and North 14th Streets.
Existing conditions, courtesy of Abel Bainnson Butz, LLP
The city bought the parcel in 2014 for $4.65 million from Motiva Enterprises, an oil and gas company, part of the Waterfront Open Space Master Plan aimed at bringing more green space to the industrial sites and the 2005 Bloomberg-era rezoning of the two Brooklyn neighborhoods. Waterfront parkland was promised as part of the rezoning.
Community Board 1 rejected original plans from the city last year because it had “too any paved pathways,” as the Brooklyn Paper reported. The new design addresses concerns by creating a softer shoreline and a “more bucolic upland area,” according to Friends of Bushwick Inlet Park.
The new park will include wet marshes, native plantings, and a small beach that is wheelchair accessible and contains a kayak launch. Upon completion, this site, along with 50 Kent, will create continuous public greenspace from Marsha P. Johnson State Park (formerly East River State Park) to the Bushwick Inlet.
According to the team at ABB, the design of the linear park was inspired by the site’s history as an area of meadows, forest uplands, and salt marshes. “Undulating, organic geometries of resilient shoreline integrate high and low marsh tidal wetland plantings interweaving organically positioned revetment to stabilize the shoreline,” the project description reads.
The project, which could take up to 2.5 years to complete, will move to a full community board vote on June 24.
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All images courtesy of Abel Bainnson Butz, LLP.
