With the mayor announcing a doomsday budget scenario, you’d think the whole city would come together to make every single penny count.
Not Borough President Helen Marshall, who pushed ahead yesterday with a questionable $20 million glass atrium at the rear of Queens Borough Hall.
On the same day Mayor Bloomberg said the city might cut 23,000 jobs and many city services, a request for competitive bids on the extension project was made public.
The plan calls for a high-ceilinged enclosure to be constructed in the nearly 70-year-old building’s rear courtyard. The area would be used for public meetings, cultural events and performances. It will be paid for with taxpayer money budgeted to Marshall’s office.
“It is a $20 million project funded from the borough president’s discretionary capital fund. It is to provide much-needed space for meetings and community programs,” said Marshall’s spokesman, Dan Andrews.
The plan was conceived in 2006 and Marshall began setting money aside for its construction the following year.
Some observers say that, given the current economic climate, the project is starting to look like a glass albatross.
“It becomes one of those glass houses that people will throw stones at. It’s timing, appearance and consequence – it just doesn’t look good,” said political analyst Doug Muzzio. “Is this the best use of public money in terms of job generation? The answer is undoubtedly no.”
In 2003, the city completed an $18-million renovation that allowed for many other city agencies to move their offices into the three-story, 191,000- square-foot space.
The new project is in its early stages, and there is no date set for its completion.
Andrews said all the other city agencies in the building – including the county clerk, the Queens district attorney and the Departments of Buildings, Transportation, City Planning and Consumer Affairs – would have full use of the new space.
“It would benefit the entire building,” he said.
One important problem the extension would help resolve is the lines of couples waiting to get married in the building’s cramped wedding office that often spill out into the street in the summer months.
“We’ve gotten numerous complaints over the years where people waiting to get married have gotten soaked in the rain,” he said. “We’ve had brides in full wedding gowns getting soaked.”
By contrast, the Manhattan wedding office just completed a $12.5 million renovation.
Andrews also said the project will be green, and allows for construction of an elevator – bringing the building’s total to two, putting it in compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act.
It will also create additional toilets.
“This is not a bad thing,” he said.