Terminal is the last container port East of the Hudson River
Eight thousand new residential units is a big deal for the Brooklyn neighborhood called Columbia Water District. It’s just south of Brooklyn Bridge Park, just west of the BQE. EDCs proposal to build at the Marine Terminal has certainly caused attention …. okay, we’ll call it controversy… as town meetings have been widely attended. It turns out it’s now a battle between a future maritime need and housing people, as Councilwoman Aviles laid out perfectly this week as she is not in favor of the plan as it stands now. This terminal is the only container port east of the Hudson River. When this is gone, we’ve lost the ability to have cargo enter the area by boat. It’s significant, and it’s hard to argue with her stance. We once had a dozen terminals in Brooklyn, Staten Island, Manhattan and Queens which each played a big part of global trade and, at times, military support. Times have changed, but getting rid of the last one left might just be a mistake.
With her concerns, the vote by a 28-person local task force has now been delayed from April 11th until the end of April. It has to be clear that it’s less about nostalgia and more about there being less and less land available for industry and manufacturing as well as ways to service them. Innovation is all around us and when entrepreneurs consider manufacturing, the ability to have raw goods accessible is quite important. No doubt there are plenty of ways to have access to various types of shipping, however not having the ability to use shipping containers impacts what can be delivered here and how it’s distributed in the future.
