Building community consensus after a -year battle

How do you get agreement on an urban renewal project after a -year battle? The lesson from New York’s Essex Crossing is clear. Take a bottom-up approach.

In 1967, residents of tenement apartments on New York’s Lower East Side were forced out to make way for what was to be a massive urban renewal project.

The city’s administrators levelled eight hectares and 1,800 low-income families, most of them Puerto Rican, were promised they could return to shiny new apartments.

While factions battled over the site’s development potential, the land sat vacant. And the apartments were never built.

After decades of squabbling the Bloomberg administration began a grassroots development plan for one of the largest city-owned sites. Communities met over time and established a shared vision.

They wanted affordable housing, parks and a new home for the historic Essex Street Market, as well as space for local retailers and entrepreneurs, rather than chains and big-box stores.

The city selected the development team in 2013, which included BFC Partners, L&M Development, Taconic, The Prusik Group and Goldman Sachs. The financier made its largest investment ever in a project, stumping up more than AUD $510 million  in equity and a AUD $130 million loan.

Today, the AUD $1.4 billion Essex Crossing development is taking shape. The nearly 180,000 sqm campus will ultimately hold 1,000 residences – per cent of which will be affordable housing.

A cinema, 40,000 sqm of retailing and 37,000 sqm of office space will be connected by a new park, bike paths and green spaces. A three-block-long underground marketplace called the Market Line will feature more than 100 vendors.

Ron Moelis, chairman of L&M Development Partners, told the New York Times recently that “there is so much acrimony in New York City today over over-development and gentrification. This is a better way to do it: community, public and private sector involvement”.

“One thing we really wanted to do from day one is be a part of the Lower East Side and not just be land on the Lower East Side,” says Ernie Padron, development associate with BFC Partners, a member of the development team.

“Essex Crossing as a whole has really been trying to embrace the artistic vibe of the Lower East Side.”

Some lucky tenants are now returning to the site.

Jose Ossorio was 11 when his family was forced out. Now 61, he recently moved into 175 Delancey. “It was a good thing to see the changes,” he says, adding that he loves the new “prosperity and the diversity of the neighbourhood”.

Want to see Essex Crossing for yourself? Join the Property Council’s international study tour from 20-27 July in New York.

Delegates will visit some of the most ambitious development and infrastructure projects in the Big Apple, and will meet some of New York’s most influential urban development thought-leaders and policy makers.

Find out more and register for the Property Council’s New York study tour today.