The state today voted to officially turn control of the long-delayed Brooklyn Bridge Park project over to the city – helping stabilize the 85-acre plan with much-needed cash and ensuring the park can stay open longer each day.
The Public Authorities Control board’s vote ratifies a plan the Bloomberg and Paterson administrations agreed to in March in which the state hands over control in exchange for the city filling $55 million of the project’s roughly $120 million budget shortfall with money set aside for the stalled Javits Center expansion.
The park is being built piecemeal as funds become available with the first sections at Piers 1 and 6 in Brooklyn Heights open since April. If the state had operated the park, it would have had to close at dusk but it now operates until 1 a.m.
The city pushed for control because it felt the state wasn’t fully committed to funding the project. A similar arrangement is being worked out to give the city power over Governors Island.