The ambitious $330 million park project along the West Side riverfront got a green light yesterday from the Army Corps of Engineers – ending two years of nervous nail-biting by city and state officials.
“We’ve been anxiously waiting and negotiating for a long time,” said Noreen Doyle of the Hudson River Park Trust. “So this is a big deal.”
Construction on portions of the glittering park from Battery Park to 59th Street began in 1998, soon after Mayor Giuliani and Gov. Pataki signed a partnership agreement.
But work on the park’s central attraction – 13 piers that were to be rebuilt for a variety of recreational uses – had to await a permit from the Army Corps of Engineers. The permit was applied for in March 1998.
More than three-quarters of the park’s 550 acres are piers and docks.