Bay Street Staging Area Tees Up Park Street Road Diet
The Downtown Investment Authority (DIA) Board gave its unanimous approval at a Jan. 17 board meeting to temporarily lease an estimated two-acre parcel of land on Bay Street for JEA to use as a construction easement for one year.
The parcel would be used as a staging area for the installation of chilled water lines on Bay Street. These lines would serve the Museum of Science and History (MOSH), the Four Seasons and other nearby developments.
An appraisal of the property placed its rental value at just over $235,000. As payment, JEA has offered in-kind services at a minimum of $300,000 for the Park Street Road Diet project – a City project several years in the making that would bring much-needed upgrades to the Park Street corridor in Brooklyn.
The week prior, at the DIA Retail Enhancement and Property Disposition Committee meeting, CEO Lori Boyer said, “The Park Street CIP is a project that will facilitate development of adjacent parcels in that vicinity. There is a developer who has already acquired the land, who’s been waiting for that road project to begin. Their engineers have identified water and sewage upgrades that need to be made to serve that development so this is providing some of that work under the pavement that would ensure future development can happen in that area.”
The developer she referenced is the Trevato Development Group, which received conceptual approval from the Downtown Development Review Board (DDRB) last year for Block Nine, its proposed mixed-use Brooklyn development.
At the committee meeting, Boyer fielded questions regarding the $300,000 in-kind services for the Park Street project and its funding within the Capital Improvement Plan (CIP). She clarified that these funds are not reducing the CIP budget.
“The CIP budget is for the street – so for pavement and curbs and trees and things like that,” she said. “This is for utility work that has been unfunded, and the question has been whether the developer was seeking incentives to cover the utility work and the developer was going to pay for the utility work, or whether JEA was going to pay for the utility work. There have been negotiations going on around that. So, this is a commitment for them to pay for at least a part of the work.”
She added that “the initial biggest concern” pertains to an iron pipe beneath Park Street that would require the street to get dug up in order to replace or repair it.
“I think the initial thought was, let’s either line or replace that iron pipe first. The other feeder lines can be additional phases from JEA or negotiated with the developer,” she said.
The resolution for the JEA property disposition includes an option to extend the lease for an additional 180 days after one year, but with the inclusion of additional consideration from JEA. At the conclusion of the lease, the parcel would revert back to the City.
By Michele Leivas
Resident Community News
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