“Pieces of this project would have been done but the whole redevelopment, as a coordinated effort, would not have happened without the involvement of the ESF students and the Center for Brownfield Studies,” Hawks said. “The community just wasn’t in a position to see the potential for what Hunts Point could become.”
20 Inside ESF Fall 2006
Development Corp., a major community-based organization dedicated to youth development and the neighborhood’s cultural and economic revitalization; and two neighborhood schools. This $214 million green development initiative will establish a new paradigm for community regeneration. Some $150 million of that total is being funded by private investors; the remaining $64 is public funding from various federal, state and city sources. The initiative will engage five waterfront sites along the Bronx and East rivers in a development called Hunts Point Food Village. The project will involve construction of a 300,000-square-foot facility to accommodate 100 food producers, who will sell their products both wholesale and to the general public. The development will also accommodate the New York City Distribution Center for Anheuser Busch, a community education center, a brewpub, a food discovery/ science center, refrigeration recovery systems, a water-oriented environmental education greenway, an anaerobic digester/methane-powered generator, solar power, a refrigeration recovery system, fish habitat enhancements, and a pier to accommodate visitors. The program will create a vibrant urban commercial“village” that provides high quality food and food products, and a unique education and visitor experience. Hawks credited the center’s involvement with pulling all the elements of the project together. “Pieces of this project would have been done but the whole redevelopment, as a coordinated effort, would not have happened without the involvement of the ESF students and the Center for Brownfield Studies,” he said. “The community just wasn’t in a position to see the potential for what Hunts Point could become. “When the team displayed the drawings and explained the larger vision, it caught people’s imagination. It created some synergy, so the whole is greater than the sum of the parts,” Hawks said. The project will be in development this winter with private and public financing, leadership from the BOEDC and planning, design, and technical support from the CBS. The development will contribute to a rebirth already marked by the Fulton Fish Market’s move to Hunts Point from Lower Manhattan in 2005. The market, one of the world’s largest fish markets, is part of the 329-acre Hunts Point Food Distribution Center, one of the largest facilities of its kind in the world. Many residents of the New York metropolitan area are consumers of food that moves through the center, which is host to more than 115 wholesalers that generate revenue of more than $3 billion each year. Hunts Point offers Gilbert and his colleagues a unique set of challenges.