A city waterfront advocacy group will build an eco-friendly dock at , but the project will not likely get started until next year, the group’s president said.
The Metropolitan Waterfront Alliance, which represents 620 groups with ties to waterways in New York and New Jersey, will debut a dock in Bay Ridge this fall, but work on its Bayside dock will not begin until 2013 due to a lack of funding in the city’s capital budget, said Roland Lewis, president and CEO of the alliance.
“The good news is that Borough President Helen Marshall and Councilman Dan Halloran, R-Whitestone, are enthusiastic supporters of the concept and the bad news is that we did not make onto a list of priorities for the current budget year,” he said. “We need to work hard to make sure it is high priority for next year.”
The dock will be a flood barge that goes up and down with the tide, providing accommodation for a variety of vessels, including rowing boats, kayaks and canoes, Lewis said.
The site will also allow a number of larger, historic boats, such as the John J. Harvey fire boat, to dock.
“They could come into port and take kids out for fun and educational boat rides,” he said. “We are looking to expand park usage for historic and recreational purposes.”
Lewis said the Bay Ridge dock costs an estimated $750,000, but believes the Fort Totten dock would cost less because it would be smaller.
If it is approved in next year’s budget, the dock could open as early as spring 2014.
“One of the exciting and great things about it is it is expanding park boundaries to the water,” he said.
The alliance is also currently working on a dock at Dyckman Marina in Manhattan and eyeing a site at Barretto Point Park in the Bronx.
