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The city will soon demolish and rebuild The Battery promenade five feet higher to help protect Lower Manhattan from powerful storm surge and rising sea level.
Mayor Eric Adams announced Monday the start of construction on the city’s $200-million Battery Coastal Resilience project. The city-funded effort will make parts of the wharf and park — a major draw for tourists — off-limits until 2026. But once complete the city says the project will shield some 300,000 workers, 100,000 residents and 12,000 businesses from flood waters.
“This is the single largest urban climate adaptation project in the nation, and it will lay groundwork to protect our city’s future,” Adams said during a news conference at The Battery.
The Battery Coastal Resilience project is one of a string of waterfront initiatives that together are known as the Lower Manhattan Coastal Resiliency Project, which began with the Bloomberg administration. Adams described Monday’s groundbreaking as part of “the relay to hand off the baton to make sure that we protect our waterfront and our infrastructure.”
The city’s Economic Development Corp., in partnership with the parks department, will implement the project in two phases to reduce the impact on park access.
During the initial phase of construction, crews will raze and reconstruct the western portion of the promenade by 2025. The second phase of work will rebuild the eastern half of the esplanade, with work expected to be complete in 2026. Ferry operations to the Statue of Liberty will be unaffected, said city officials.
The city says it’s currently mobilizing marine construction equipment, including cranes, tug boats and excavation machinery mounted on barges, to tear down the promenade stretching from the East Coast Memorial to Pier A.
Immediately to the north of the project, state-run Battery Park City is in the midst of its own more than mile long effort to reimagine the western waterfront with fixed and deployable flood barriers. On the opposite side of The Battery planning is underway for yet another city-led coastal project, known as the Financial District and Seaport Climate Resilience Master Plan. North of that project additional protections are in the works along Manhattan’s eastern flank.
“All of it forms a comprehensive multi-billion dollar effort that’s already taken us 12 years; it’s got several more years to go,” said Rohit Aggarwala, the city’s chief climate officer and the commissioner of the Department of Environmental Protection. “The good news is that within a couple of years we are going to start seeing the first of these projects complete.”
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Caroline Spivack , 2024-05-07 15:58:11
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