NEW YORK CITY—Following a study of underutilized corners of the city, a panel from the Urban Land Institute describe the University Heights waterfront in the Bronx as an “opportunity area for water-dependent recreational activity and high-density mixed-use development.” Another ULI group has recommended to the Dept. of City Planning that it turn the core of Broadway Junction in East New York, Brooklyn, into a regional center of economic activity.
Says ULI New York executive director Felix Ciampa, "ULI New York was pleased to be able to offer the city recommendations on how to catalyze mixed-use development in the Broadway Junction and University Heights study areas to create more walkable, vibrant, mixed-use districts that support and connect the adjacent communities.”
In the Bronx study, Barry Hersh, a clinical associate professor of real estate at NYU Schack Institute of Real Estate says, “The area is rich with opportunities for residential development, a better connection between Manhattan and the Bronx, activating public spaces along the Harlem River and better serving the existing members of the community with recreational space.”
The panel members saw the University Heights waterfront, with its significant transit resources, as an ideal area for community waterfront recreational activity and high-density mixed-use development, despite limited pedestrian and vehicular access to the waterfront due to the Major Deegan Expressway and the Metro-North Railroad. The panel put forward a grand vision where the neighborhoods on both sides of the University Heights Bridge – University Heights to east and Inwood and Sherman Creek to the west—are united by the Harlem River as one cohesive and sustainable community. The panel recommended cost-effective strategies to improve pedestrian access along the waterfront, which would be crucial to unlocking the area's development potential.
Meanwhile, the panel that studied East New York identified several key assets in the study area and provided recommendations for streetscape and public realm improvements and property assemblage that could be a catalyst for new retail and entertainment development to serve the surrounding communities and the region more broadly. Recognizing the cultural diversity of Broadway Junction's adjacent neighborhoods, the panel proposed rebranding the area as a destination for cultural and commercial exchange with new economic development and employment opportunities for neighborhood residents.
The group's recommendations were around property assemblage, zoning, streetscapes, open space and economic development.
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Rayna Katz
Rayna Katz is a seasoned business journalist whose extensive experience includes coverage of the lodging sector, travel and the culinary space. She was most recently content director for a business-to-business publisher, overseeing four publications. While at Meeting News, a travel trade publication, she received a Best Reporting award for a story on meeting cancellations in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina.
