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Plans to revitalize the Hunts Point neighborhood in the South Bronx originated in 2003 from the work of the Hunts Point Task Force. In 2005, the Hunts Point Vision Plan was unveiled, the goals of which include creating jobs and a competitive business environment, as well as building a sustainable community. Plans also include the development of new waterfront parks, improving traffic safety, upgrading street lighting, adding recreation trails, repaving streets and improving the rail freight lines serving Hunts Point. Additionally, the Vision Plan involves collaboration with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority to provide new bus service to the Hunts Point area.

On November 21, 2006, Mayor Bloomberg announced a $30 million plan to add parkland, recreation space and landscaped streets to the Hunts Point Peninsula. Hunts Point Riverside Park was completed and opened in September of the following year. The park will eventually be connected to an 8-mile greenway that will run along the Bronx River from Westchester down to New York City, providing much needed open space, waterfront access and opportunities for mixed used economic development. The South Bronx Greenway Project (SBG) has largely been championed by the local community group, Sustainable South Bronx, but it is also part of the mayor’s greater efforts to reclaim the New York City waterfront for recreational uses.

Another facet of the Vision Plan includes zoning changes. In January of 2008, the Department of City Planning certified the ULURP application for a rezoning designed to create buffer zones around residential and industrial areas and foster economic development in the neighborhood.

City Sued By Hunts Point Residents Over Odor

Mothers on the Move and some South Bronx residents have sued the City over a longstanding battle concerning the smells emitted from local waste treatment centers. Residents are concerns about the smells from two plants – one used by the City as a waste water treatment plant another privately owned used to make fertilizer. The City contends that it is actively working with the residents on the issue of the smell.

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Mayor Bloomberg Releases Plan for South Bronx Development

The Bloomberg Administration's newest facet for redevelopment in the South Bronx includes 8,000 housing units and a significant amount of space for commercial properties and a convention center/hotel. In the past 5 years over $3 billion has gone into the development of the area and businesses have relocated to the Hunts Point and Mott Haven neighborhoods from Manhattan, however it still has a long way to go.

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Hunt's Point Produce Market Considering A Move

The massive wholesale produce market at Hunt's Point, whose lease is set to expire in 2011, is considering a move to New Jersey if the City does not address renovation needs at the facility. The NYCEDC has assessed renovation costs to be $750 million, while the vendors association feels it can be done cheaper and would need just $150 million of City funds in order to upgrade the facility, which does $2 billion of business a year and has existed in Hunt's Point for 41 years.

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Floating Pool Lady Docks in Hunts Point

The City’s Floating Pool Lady swimming pool docked in the Bar-retto Point Park area of Hunts Point last week. The pool will open on June 27 for the summer and will remain in the Bronx between three and twelve years, depending on how many times the permit is renewed. According to the Adrian Benepe, Commissioner of the City’s Parks and Recreation Department, the pool can hold up to 170 people and will be open every day from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. The MTA recently announced that it will offer shuttles between the subway stops in Hunts Point to Bar-retto Point Park.

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Alternative Fuel Station Planned for Hunts Point

The Economic Development Corporation (EDC) has issued a request for proposals for plans for an alternative fueling station at Hunts Point in the South Bronx. The EDC says that providing the option of alternative fuels for trucks traveling in the area could mitigate some of the negative impacts of truck exhaust in a neighborhood where 25% to 50% of pollution is attributed to the diesel trucks that service the massive Hunts Point Food Distribution Center. According to Miquela Craytor of Sustainable South Bronx, the idea came from the goals put forth in the Hunts Point Vision Plan. The EDC says that special consideration will be given to proposals that include more than one alternative fuel option, as well as those that incorporate complementary uses such as maintenance facilities for converting engines to accept alternative fuels or plug-in stations for refrigerated trucks to prevent them from having to idle to keep food cool.

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Hunts Point to Get Floating Pool for the Summer and Beyond

The Department of Parks and Recreation announced that the floating pool, which was docked in Brooklyn last summer, will relocate to Hunts Point for this summer. Parks Commissioner, Adrian Benepe, says it will most likely stay there beyond this summer because the surrounding community is in need of pool space. The City’s Department of Environmental Protection is spending nearly $3 million to provide needed sewer upgrades on the Tiffany Street Pier that will house the floating pool. The City suggested that a second floating pool may be in the works as well.

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Non-profits in Hunts Point Worry that Landmark Status Will Increase Rents

The recent designation of the American Bank Notes Building in Hunts Point as a landmark has some current non-profit tenants of the building worried. While they agree that the landmark status may have its benefits, such as increased visibility for their businesses, they fear that the new status combined with expenses associated with a planned renovation of the building will cause their rents to increase to the point that they may need to relocate. One group – a homeless shelter – is already being forced to find a new home due to a rent increase.

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City’s Plans for Hunts Point Presented to Community Board

The City’s Economic Development Corporation (EDC) recently presented its plans for 6 sites, totaling 25 acres, in Hunts Point to Community Board 2. EDC’s goal in developing the area is to generate new jobs without compromising the already risky air quality levels. On one site the EDC will issue Request for Proposals (RFPs) for an alternative fuel station; on another, the City plans to develop a South Street Seaport model of open space. The plans will likely include government incentives to bring businesses to the area. Some believe that the proposal will strengthen the food distribution industry in the area and may realize the recreational opportunities of the waterfront.

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Building in Hunts Point May Become Artistic and Cultural Center

The historic American Bank Note Building was recently sold for $32 million to the Taconic Investment Partners and Denham Wolf Real Estate Services. The new owners are hoping to develop the space into a cultural and arts center, expanding on the businesses that are already tenants in the building. They envision performing arts groups, web designers, architects, and new “green” businesses to occupy the space. Taconic Investment plans to renovate the space including introducing more sustainable features and hopes to reopen in 2011, the building’s centennial. The Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) is currently considering a landmark designation for the building.

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Artwork Hopeful to Brighten Hunts Point

A new mural is being built along Longfellow Avenue in Hunts Point in an effort to brighten walking paths to Barretto Park. The wall was built as a sound buffer for the New York Recycling Ventures Inc. scrap yard. Sustainable South Bronx encouraged Recycling Ventures owner Adam Rosenthal to build a “green wall” that would not only help brighten the neighborhood but would also help reduce storm water runoff. The Point Community Development Corporation, who is responsible for creating the mural, hopes this effort, will translate to help beautify other industrial areas.

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Hunts Point Vision Plan Protects Residents While Encouraging Growth

The Department of City Planning has proposed a rezoning plan for the Hunts Point neighborhood to shield the residential community from the nearby industrial facilities while encouraging economic growth. The rezoning will create a buffer ring around the residential areas. The buffer zone will allow some light industry, but will also encourage commercial and community facilities. The rezoning also includes a buffer zone around the Hunts Point Food Distribution Center. The plan must first be approved by Community Board 2 before any action can be taken.

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Businesses Move to South Bronx

The South Bronx Overall Economic Development Corp. announced plans to purchase and turn three abandoned gas stations into commercial space, as more businesses are attracted to the Bronx because of lower rents and access to highways. The targeted lots, which are designated as brownfields and will need to be cleaned up prior to development, are on Bruckner Boulevard and East 138th Street.

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New Green Business Praised in Hunts Point

Hunts Point welcomed its first LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certified building when the company Anheuser-Busch began construction of a 220,000-square foot center in the area. Both elected officials and local community groups, including Sustainable South Bronx, praised the “green” construction and the warehouse’s addition of 100 permanent jobs. Project completion is expected in October 2008.

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Riverside Park in Hunts Point Opens; Greenway Plan Continues

Mayor Bloomberg’s $70 million plan to clean up the Bronx River had a concrete success last month when the Hunts Point Riverside Park opened to the public. The park, which is part of a larger plan to join an 8-mile path between the city and Westchester County, has already established greater access to the river and its waterfront activities. The city’s Parks Department and many local groups applauded the park’s debut and the investment that it will bring to the South Bronx.

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Bronx Citizens Question Pollution, Smell at Hunts Point

A group of concerned citizens in the Hunts Point area of the Bronx are taking their frustrations about lingering pollution and smells to the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) pollution control plant in Hunts Point. The residents believe that the pollution is actually causing unusually high rates of asthma among the borough's youth. The group is using a bus trip to the plant to make their contentions known, while also highlighting Mayor Bloomberg's commitment to environmental sustainability in the city.

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Community Activist Extraordinaire in the South Bronx

Many equate Majora Carter, founder of the group Sustainable South Bronx, with Jane Jacobs, community activist of her time, who battled Robert Moses and his large urban planning projects that she believed were ruining neighborhood communities. In this era of big building in New York City and a Moses like figure in Deputy Mayor Dan Doctoroff, Carter is fighting like Jacobs for the communities in the South Bronx. In particular, she is opposed to the city's plan to build a new jail in the South Bronx and is frustrated by the lack of state interest in turning a nonfunctional Bronx expressway into a greenway. The New York Observer details her thoughts in an interview.

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Critics of South Bronx Jail Plan Assail Mayor's Development Plans

Dan Doctoroff, the Deputy Mayor of New York City, received criticism at a panel last night in East Harlem about the legacy of Robert Moses, the controversial master builder and planner. During a discussion about the need to include public input in large projects, an advocate for the South Bronx criticized the City's proposed 2,000-bed jail in the area. Doctoroff attempted to draw a distinction between environmental concerns, on the one hand, and economic development, on the other. The panel finished without a question-and-answer session.

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A Green Look for Low-Income Housing in the Bronx

A group of architects and developers who won a design competition hosted by the city’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) and the New York chapter of the American Institute for Architects will construct a new low and moderate-income housing complex in the South Bronx. Mayor Bloomberg’s administration is providing a 60,000-square-foot lot owned by the city for the construction. The 202-apartment complex is particularly unique, however, because it features designs that are socially, psychologically, and environmentally advantageous. The winning design: a tower, mid-rise building, and townhouses that are connected by courtyards and “green” roofs, may inspire an environmentally friendly trend in affordable housing development.

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Size of Elderly Population in Bronx to fall by 2030

The Department of City Planning projects that the Bronx will have the smallest population increase among the city’s boroughs by 2030. While the citywide population will grow to 9.1 million by then, the Bronx’s population will hit 1.46 million. Possible explanations for the borough’s decline in average age vary. Some, like Bronx Borough President Adolfo Carrión, believe that a wave of investment and economic development have made the borough a more attractive place to live. Others point to a comparatively low life expectancy rate in the Bronx, due to preventable health conditions.

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2006: A Year of Development in the Bronx

The year 2006 saw many large-scale development plans in the Bronx: a new $800-million Yankees stadium to be finished in 2009, a $500-million new Gateway Center at the Terminal Market also to open in 2009, and the City’s pledge to build 12 acres of open green space as part of the Hunts Point Vision Plan and South Bronx Greenway Project. These are only a sampling of many development plans that are underway or being considered in the borough. Many of these plans are cause of great debate and disagreement. NY1 covers the range of projects in the Bronx.

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Proposed Green Space in South Bronx Strengthens Support

The plan for the South Bronx Greenway, part of the City’s Hunts Point Vision Plan, has encouraged many Bronx residents and officials. Assemblyman Ruben Diaz Jr., for one, apologized to Mayor Bloomberg for allegations that the Bronx had been forgotten in City development plans. Community activists have been asking for years for more green space in the Hunts Point area, a heavily industrial area and the poorest Congressional district in the U.S.

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Expanded Greenway For Hunts Point

Construction is expected to start next summer on the South Bronx Greenway a part of the City’s Hunts Point Vision Plan. The $30 million plan calls for 12 acres of new waterfront open space, a mile and a half of waterfront paths, and eight and a half miles of pedestrian-friendly routes. The entire plan could take more than 10 years to finish, but the smaller projects in the plan are expected to start by next summer.

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City Plans Jail In Hunts Point

The City plans to build a new jail in Hunts Point on the South Bronx waterfront. Locals residents and officials are worried that the new jail could inhibit other development at the Oak Point site which offers both waterfront access and an adjacent railyard. The new jail is part of the Department of Corrections plan to close the city jail at Rikers Island and hold prisoners awaiting trial nearer to the courthouses in each borough.

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Food Distributor Gets Green Light For Hunts Point Site

A legal dispute over the leasing rights to land adjacent to the Hunts Point Market in the Bronx has been settled in the City’s favor. At issue was the legality of a selection process overseen by the City’s Economic Development Corporation. The Hunts Point Terminal Produce Cooperative, made up of vendors at the market, had sued after losing it’s bid to Baldor Specialty Foods. Baldor will now proceed in taking over the site.

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A Vision For the City's Largest Produce Market

The operators of the Hunts Point Terminal Market, the City’s wholesale produce market, have a vision of an improved a state-of-the-art, $550 million facility near the current one in the Bronx. According to the Hunts Point Market Cooperative, the market feeds 22 million New Yorkers daily, handling 210 million packages of fruit and vegetables from nearly every state and 55 foreign countries every year. The Cooperative is trying to generate interest among political leaders and the City’s Economic Development Corporation.

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NYC Retail In The Age Of Chain Stores

The Gotham Gazette provides excerpts of comments from a recent panel discussion on the role of locally owned retail stores in an age when chain stores are increasingly locating in New York City. La Marqueta in East Harlem and Hunts Point in the Bronx are two projects discussed.

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Baldor Will Appeal

Baldor is appealing a Bronx state supreme court ruling that called for a new process that includes a reasonable amount of time for applicants to make proposals, .

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Business Improperly Chosen for Hunts Point, Judge Says

The State Supreme Court ruled on Monday that the Bloomberg administration did not follow the correct process when it selected Baldor Specialty Foods to be the occupant of a vacant warehouse at the Hunts Point Terminal Market.

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Wholesale Farmers' Market Eyes Hunts Point

The state Department of Agriculture and Markets is set to award a $100,000 contract to further study the feasibility of a year-round, wholesale farmers' market and to identify suitable locations in the city. Hunts Point in the Bronx was singled out in a preliminary study the agency released last year because it's already home to giant produce and meat distribution centers, as well as the relocated Fulton Fish Market.

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Two Companies Plan to Expand and Add Jobs in Hunts Point

Two companies, Baldor Specialty Foods and Anheuser-Busch of New York, will expand their New York City operations as part of the city's redevelopment plans for a wholesale food distribution center in the South Bronx.

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Fulton Fish Market Open for Business

The Fulton Fish Market began operations out of its new $85 million facility in Hunts Point, bringing about 600 jobs to the area.

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Mixed Emotions at Closing Fulton Fish Market

Workers at the Fulton Fish Market have mixed emotions as the market officially closed for business and awaits relocation at Hunts Point.

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Some Fear Hunts Point Vision Plan Will Not Meet Neighborhood's Needs

With only 200 of 800 new jobs from the planned Fulton Fish Market likely to become available to neighborhood residents, some fear that the Hunts Point Vision Plan may not succeed in bringing benefits to the community from the largely disconnected market.

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Fulton Fish Market's move to Hunt's Point delayed

Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Carol Edmead upheld a restraining order that prevented fish wholesalers from acquiring licenses to unload their own fish. The decision delayed the move by the Fulton Fish Market to Hunts Point.

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Traffic Rerouting Expected to Improve Air Quality and Reduce Congestion

The conversion of specific blocks of Oak Point Ave. and East Bay Ave. from two-way to one-way is expected to reduce congestion and air polution from heavy truck traffic. Both expected benefits are goals of the Hunts Point Vision Plan.

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Hope in bloom in Hunts Point

Mayor Bloomberg unveiled the Hunts Point Vision Plan. The $27 million allocation toward the plan will be spent on traffic-safety improvements, zoning changes, waterfront development, and workforce development.

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Mayor Bloomberg unveils Hunts Point Vision Plan

From this press release, "the goals of the Hunts Point Vision Plan includes developing new waterfront parks, improving traffic safety, upgrading street lighting, repaving streets and improving the rail freight lines serving Hunts Point. Additionally, the Vision Plan will better link workers to anticipated new jobs through collaboration with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority to provide new bus service to the Hunts Point area."

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