PUBLIC TESTIMONY
Testimony by Joan Greenfield, Building Owner at 402 West 40th Street, on Port Authority Bus Terminal Project Impact
1:24:30
·
157 sec
Joan Greenfield, a building owner at 402 West 40th Street, expressed concerns about the Port Authority Bus Terminal project's impact on her property and the surrounding area. She highlighted the need for precondition surveys of older buildings and emphasized the project's potential long-term effects on various types of businesses in the neighborhood.
- Requested information on how to be included in precondition surveys for vulnerable buildings
- Emphasized that the project's impact extends beyond retail businesses to include residential properties and landlords
- Pointed out that the Department of Finance's assessment of her building's market value is currently double what brokers are offering, indicating potential long-term financial impacts on property owners in the area
Joan Greenfield
1:24:30
Hi.
1:24:32
I'm Joan Greenfield, and I am a building owner and resident at, 402 West 40th Street, which is just in that little crook between the new terminal and the, staging and storage area.
1:24:47
So between 9th and Dyer Avenues.
1:24:50
And I wanna speak to 2 things.
1:24:53
1, we've already heard there will be precondition survey going on to protect some of these older buildings, which are rickety little tenements built in the 1800, and I think very vulnerable, especially to the subgrade work that is part of the plan for this immense public work.
1:25:18
And and you have said that work will begin at the start of 2025.
1:25:26
That is mere months away.
1:25:28
Nobody has contacted us about an inspection to get our baseline assessment, and I wanna know how to get on that list or to assure me and other owners like me that we are included in that.
1:25:44
That's extremely important because I think we are very vulnerable to the scale of this project.
1:25:51
My second point is that when you talk about impact on the local businesses, you should not have a a thought limited to just retail operations, food food, restaurant, and so forth.
1:26:11
Other businesses include residences, residential landlords, and people who are going to be sleeping and living in the middle of this construction site are undoubtedly going to have an impact on the the income for the building owners.
1:26:29
In our case, we have a small commercial office space
Kevin Riley
1:26:33
Your time expired?
Joan Greenfield
1:26:36
What's that?
Kevin Riley
1:26:38
Your time expired, but you could start wrapping up, miss Green.
Joan Greenfield
1:26:41
I wanna wrap up.
1:26:42
Just to say, there is more to it than just retail spaces.
1:26:46
And for starts, the Department of Finance assessment of the market value of my building is currently double what a broker will offer.
1:26:55
So this is gonna have a long term impact on everyone in the neighborhood, and I don't think you should have a narrow vision of what that will be consisting of.
1:27:06
That's it.
