Demolition and Preservation Continue at Davids Island
By Occhipinti, Christina
The buildings keep coming down on Davids Island, the 78-acre island half a mile off New Rochelle in Long Island Sound once known as Fort Slocum until the U.S. Army base was deactivated in 1965.
The $31 million Army Corps of Engineers cleanup continues to destroy the remaining structures on the former base, said Gregory Goepfert, project manager in the corps’ New York District. So far, 43 of the original 98 buildings have been demolished, and “we expect to be able to demolish an additional 30 buildings by the end of December,” he said.
“We are strictly charged with making open space on the island, which includes demolishing unsafe buildings,” Goepfert said. “Back in 2005, we had an environmental assessment that made the assumption we would be demolishing all of the buildings.”
Besides the creation of open space by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the city of New Rochelle has its own project under way on Davids Island, looking at pollution from “petroleum products, anything involved with the transformers out there or anything else that may have been buried there,” said Jeff Coleman, commissioner of public works in New Rochelle.
“The corps is basically taking care of everything above ground, and the city, in partnership with Westchester County and the state Environmental Department of Conservation, is investigating contamination underground,” Coleman said. “We’re using the state’s ERP (Environmental Remediation Program), and the city and county are sharing the cost of that, with the state putting up the bulk of the money. We anticipate that we’ll start seeing results from investigation testing in the fall.”
PRESERVING SOME STRUCTURES
In 2004, U.S. Rep. Nita Lowey, D-Harrison, requested that, Congress allocate funds for the demolition of buildings on the island, and has since secured more than $10 million for the cleanup. Lowey’s support of the county and city’s vision of a public park has made the cleanup efforts at the island a priority said New Rochelle Mayor Noam Bramson.
“We’re looking forward to working with the state and the county to investigate subsurface environmental conditions on the island,” Bramson said. “This work brings us closer to the day when Davids Island can once again be enjoyed by the public.”
One focus of the city of New Rochelle and the Army Corps of Engineers is preserving as many of the original structures on the island as possible. In 2005, an Historical Architectural Survey and a National Register Evaluation concluded Davids Island could be eligible to be placed on the National Register of Historic Places.
“We’re doing photo documentation and archive searches of the buildings, as we are required to by the National Historic Preservation Act,” Goepfert said. “We’re also doing some archeological investigations as well. There is definitely evidence of pre-occupation of the island. We have found some items of interest out there.”
New Rochelle officials have identified several areas on the island that may be able to be saved, in some way or another, for historical purposes. “We looked at a number of buildings we would like to consider for preservation,” Coleman said. “They haven’t been inhabited for some time and some of them are just a pile of rubble. The ones we chose have the best chance for some sort of rehabilitation for reuse or simply to preserve the area as representative of the buildings that stood on the site.”
While the structures on Davids islands have been uninhabited for more than 40 years, the Army Corps of Engineers may be able to save certain aspects of the various buildings still standing. “Possible preservation includes saving a piece of a building – a keystone, a door, a ceiling tile – or the consideration of a full restoration of a building,” Goepfert said. “But we think that will be an unlikely occurrence. Many of these buildings are in a ruined state.”
PUBLIC PARK
Since its deactivation in 1965 as a military base, Davids Island has bounced back and forth between handlers. The U.S. Army gave the island to the city of New Rochelle in 1967. In May 1968, the city sold the island to Consolidated Engine, only to buy it back from the utility company in 1976. Since that time, a handful of redevelopment plans have been brought to New Rochelle’s attention.
In 1981, the city went into a development agreement with Xanadu Properties Associates, which originally proposed a number of 55- story towers to be built on the island. The plan was revised to create about 1,700 condominiums in four buildings of at least 15 stories, a marina with 800 boat slips, a heliport, a sewage facility and a 3,465-foot bridge connecting the island to the mainland. The plan was aborted in 1992 when the terms of the development agreement expired.
Two years later, Manhattan developer Donald Trump proposed a $600 million development that never came to fruition. In 1998, the Davids Island Re-Development Company Inc. submitted a plan for 1.6 millionsquarefoot development that included a hotel, conference center and resort spa; a children’s theme park; an aquarium, museum and science center; a marina with long- and short-term moorings; a two-mile pedestrian walkway; a boardwalk with boat rentals; and residential housing. like the Trump proposal before it, it was never implemented.
In 2001, Westchester County signed an agreement to buy Davids Island for $6.5 million from Now Rochelle that will enable the county to designate the island as a county park. “Right now (the island is) just decaying,” Coleman said. “With the exception of some wildlife, that’s really all that’s enjoying it.”
Copyright Westfair Communications Apr 30, 2007
(c) 2007 Westchester County Business Journal. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.