Construction work has started on the Hudson River Park Trust’s $31 million Pier 26 overhaul in Tribeca.
The reworked pier between North Moore and Hubert streets will highlight the river’s flora and fauna with a constructed marsh intended to attract creatures that once frequented the city’s shores, Tribeca Patch reports.
“This will be unlike anything that has been built in New York,” Madelyn Wils, the Hudson River Trust’s president and CEO, said at a news conference celebrating the pier’s groundbreaking on Oct. 9. “This beautiful pier, while dedicated to our mission of protecting and teaching about the ecology of the river, will have something for everyone … This neighborhood has grown and changed, and we’re committed to serving everyone.”
“This is about recreating a living laboratory, a living marine ecosystem,” said Rose Harvey, the commissioner of the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation. “This is going to be a hub for 30,000 kids that the Hudson River Park Trust educates every year, and what’s better than a hands-on, living-in-color representation?”
The pier will also include two soccer fields, lounge areas and an elevated river promenade at the pier’s western tip for sprawling waterfront views.
The project results form a public-private partnership between the city, the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation and Citigroup, each contributing $10 million.
Construction started in the last week of September, and will conclude by 2020.
Trevcon Construction says it has been awarded the $11.8 million Pier 26 Ecopark, an extension of the existing Pier 26 featuring a tidal wetlands area and an elevated walkway rising over 15’ above the Hudson River. “Included in the construction of the project are 36 ea. 36” diameter x 1.25” wall steel pipe piles, 9 ea. precast concrete slabs weighing over 180 tons each, placement of over 2,000 architectural boulders, as well as a structural steel walkway topped with precast concrete planks,” Trevcon says.
