Skip to Content
Streetsblog New York City home
Streetsblog New York City home
Log In
Development

Meet the Designer Behind the NYC Parking Boom

east_river_plaza.jpg

Earlier this week, the Times real estate section profiled the developer-architect team behind East River Plaza, a big box retail outlet in East Harlem that will include 1,248 parking spaces when it opens next year. In the piece, we learn that the project's designer, an Atlanta-based Home Depot specialist called GreenbergFarrow, is responsible for other parking-rich shopping centers throughout the city, including Gateway Center at Bronx Terminal Market (pictured above), Rego Park Mall II, and the Red Hook Ikea.

In one passage, a GreenbergFarrow architect explains his firm's intention to replicate the suburban shopping experience in the urban core:

People might visit a shopping district like SoHo or Bleecker Street in Greenwich Village as an enjoyable way to pass a few hours, but they shop in big-box stores purely for practical reasons and are annoyed if they are forced to linger, said John R. Clifford, a principal of GreenbergFarrow. “One experience is recreational and the other is all about convenience,” he said in an interview at the company’s Manhattan office.

From the outset, Mr. Blumenfeld, the principal of the Blumenfeld Development Group, hoped to attract retailers like Home Depot and Costco, whose suburban customers are used to parking in a big lot and wheeling carts and pallets along flat surfaces.

Since a parking lot was out of the question at East River Plaza, GreenbergFarrow tried to make parking in the garage as similar as possible to a suburban experience. The parking surfaces themselves are flat and accessible directly from the stores by bridges, and shoppers enter and exit by means of circular ramps located at two corners of the parking structure.

So, in the name of convenience, Blumenfeld Development and GreenbergFarrow are squandering the inherent attraction of urban streets -- walkable places where people actually like to linger -- and flooding the city with additional car trips.

These big box stores may have been given the green light before PlaNYC was unveiled, but how does this wave of car-friendly development square with Mayor Bloomberg's much-touted sustainability goals? Between a City Planning Department that sits back and allows the willy-nilly construction of new public parking garages, and an Economic Development Corporation that actively courts big box retailers and signs off on stadium parking subsidies, the push to mitigate traffic seems to have been limited to congestion pricing. Streetsblog has a request into the Office of Long-term Planning and
Sustainability to find out whether scaling back huge parking facilities
is on the mayor's agenda.

Rendering of Gateway Center at Bronx Terminal Market: Brennan Beer Gorman Architects/New York Times

Stay in touch

Sign up for our free newsletter

More from Streetsblog New York City

The ‘Problem’ With E-Bikes? The Super Fast Illegal Ones

New Yorkers are riding illegal vehicles marketed as e-bikes with little to no-consequences, and it's a safety problem.

October 21, 2025

The ‘War on Cars’ Is Worth Fighting — And Here’s What Life Might Look Like When We Win

A first book from the prolific podcast hosts offers a solid foundation for would-be advocates against automobility — and some new ammunition for veterans.

October 21, 2025

Tuesday’s Headlines: Carnage All Over Edition

Monday's papers were a blood tide of crashes. Plus other news.

October 21, 2025

‘Outrage’: Pols — And Even DOT Boss — Protest Trump’s Block on 34th St. Busway

A huge rally in Midtown to urge President Trump to get his meathooks off our transit included DOT Commissioner Ydanis Rodriguez, who is poised to capitulate.

October 20, 2025

Monday’s Headlines: Uncharted Territory Edition

"No Kings" means hands off our busway. Plus the news.

October 20, 2025

More Tantrums: City Halts 34th Street Busway After Threat from Trump DOT

The feds threatened to cut city and state funding if New York doesn't halt all work on the 34th Street busway so the FHWA can review the project.

October 17, 2025
See all posts