City Will Pay $24.4 Million to Convert Empty Bronx Lot into Public Park

We’ve got a lot to look forward to.

City Council Speaker Julie Menin and Council Member Oswald Feliz announced on Tuesday that the city will spend almost $25 million to build a “state-of-the-art” park with basketball and volleyball courts, a playground and a skate park in three sections of a vacant lot along Ittner Place between Park and Webster Avenues in the Tremont neighborhood of the Bronx.

The empty area, which currently functions as an unofficial parking lot and dumping ground, lies directly underneath the busy Cross Bronx Expressway. The run-down space has attracted debris and homeless encampments.

“I get calls every week about this property,” said Rafael Moure-Punnett, the district manager of the Bronx’s Community Board 6, at the City Council press conference. “It’s very scary. You’ve got an empty property in the middle of the Bronx with neighborhoods all around it.”

Last year, News 12 documented an abundance of “trash, needles, and homeless encampments” in the area, which is only a block away from a local high school on Webster Avenue. Those conditions remain today:

The renovation is one component of the so-called Park-Webster Neighborhood Plan, in which the city will solicit and incorporate community feedback to redesign Park and Webster avenues and their surrounding areas. The council is asking for ideas and feedback to guide housing development, street redesigns, transit improvements and improved public spaces.

The map below illustrates the area the plan will cover:

“The community board is very much looking forward to imagining what the neighborhood could look like and engaging in this process — which is one of my favorite activities — of asking Bronx residents what they want to see in their neighborhood,” said Moure-Punnett.

But the renovation won’t come cheap. The city anticipates a price tag of $24.4 million.

“It’s three large sections of land, and they’re very undeveloped. We’ve also got to deal with conflict from the expressway and city permits,” said Council Member Oswald Feliz. “The cost is just astronomical.” The lot is separated into three distinct sections by columns supporting the expressway, and the city wants to revamp each section.

The high cost is not just an effect of the location, though. Many recent city renovations have drawn unusually high price tags. For one, Feliz mentioned the 2016 Fordham Plaza renovation in the Bronx, which expanded pedestrian space and added amenities like seating areas. That cost the city $34 million.

Manhattan’s Grand Army Plaza is another example. Its redesign included new lighting, accessibility measures and repairs to its central fountain — and cost $21 million.

“We’ve got to find new ways to work on lowering the costs of these projects,” said Feliz.

The $24.4 million will be allocated to the Parks Department, who will work alongside Council Member Feliz to design the park’s amenities.

“In order to build a totally brand new park, I’d imagine they’re going to have to dig pretty far under the ground and take out the dirt that is laden with lead and arsenic and everything else,” said Sam Biederman, the former chief of staff at the Parks Department. “That’s easily between five and 10 million dollars right there.”

“If the design has a comfort station, also known as a bathroom, let’s say that costs between 5 and 6 million dollars,” Biederman continued. “The courts … cost about a million each. Landscaping will add between $500,000 to a million. With added costs and the time it takes, I can easily see how it would be $24 million.”

Former Mayor Eric Adams announced the renovation last year and allocated $8.7 million to create a basketball court and a skate park. The project will now enjoy a tripled budget and a more ambitious build-out. A rep for the Parks Department said the agency is still “identify the scope” of the now additionally funded project.

At the announcement on Tuesday, officials and attendees had to raise their voices over the deafening noise of overhead traffic and cars passing by on surface streets. The Cross Bronx Expressway, which displaced between 40,000 and 60,000 residents in its 1948 construction, carries an average of 150,000 vehicles per day. It’s unclear how the soon-to-be-park, which lies directly underneath the hulking structure, would mitigate the expressway’s noise pollution.

In the meantime: The city is urging Bronxites to “stay engaged” and “tell us what you think” by attending workshops and completing surveys about future improvements to Park and Webster Avenues.