Using fill to extend Battery Park City beyond its current northern border (roughly at Chambers Street) by half a mile (to a point just below Canal Street) would create more than 60 acres of additional new land in Tribeca, one of the most desirable residential and business districts in the United States. This would be more than room enough to build twice the square footage of offices that Amazon envisions, and still have space left over for apartment towers to house its employees (and even those of its subcontractors), while also constructing a beautiful series of parks and open spaces. This plan would create a sylvan, campus-like blank slate — all overlooking the Hudson River — on which Amazon could design its own ideal headquarters.
Urstadt argues that the task would be easy to carry out from “an engineering perspective.” Additionally, it’s a cost effective move as the parcel would operate on a land lease system just like the one Battery Park City was founded upon. This means Amazon developers would pay an annual ground rent for the space that they could later develop as they see fit. According to Urstadt, this would “always be lower than Amazon’s cost to acquire land or buildings.” Next, check out Iconic NYC Buildings Light up in ‘Amazon Orange’ in Support of Bid for Amazon’s Second Headquarters.
