Parks Department Rejects Community's Demand To Restore Seized Ballfield Time In The Fall
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Overstaying Its Welcome. Without notifying the community, once again, the Bloomberg administration struck a deal to allow the Sutton Place Tennis Club consession to extend its season whereby displacing park users in a community that has the least amount of park and open space in the entire city. The consession is located in the Queensboro Oval Park softball field under the 59th Street Bridge at York Avenue in Manhattan. The tennis concession charges the highest price of any tennis concession on NYC park land - up to $ 195 per hour. (Photo: Geoffrey Croft/NYC Park Advocates) Click on photo to enlarge Betsy Smith, head of revenue and marketing for the Parks Department is scheduled to appear this evening at 6:30 pm at a special CB 8's Parks committee meeting. The agency has refused to answer a number of questions relating to the deal. |
Manhattan
By Geoffrey Croft
Irate ballfield users and Community Board 8 members were informed by the Parks Department just two weeks ago that the agency had granted the city's most expensive tennis concession on public parkland an additional six weeks to operate in another behind closed door deal orchestrated by the Parks Department's revenue division.
Without notifying the community the Bloomberg administration struck a deal to allow the private tennis club to extend its season whereby displacing park users in a community has the least amount of park and open space in the entire city. The Sutton Place Tennis Club concession charges the highest price of any tennis concession on NYC park land - up to $ 195 per hour.
The secretly negotiated deal allows the tennis club bubbles to stay up for an additional six weeks each year until 2017.
Sources told A Walk In The Park that Tony Scolnick/Sutton East Tennis Club had threatened to sue the City/Parks Department over the cancellation of a 2009 contract that would have allowed the tennis concessionaire to operate on the ballfield year-round.
According to Betsy Smith, head of revenue and marketing for the Parks Department and Mayor Bloomberg family friend, the reason for the extension was because the concessioner made a "substantial investment" to convert the bubble to year-around.
Despite repeated attempts the Parks Department has refused to provide any documentation of investments made, or answer when the contract was signed, or how much in additional revenue the City/Sutton East Tennis Club is expected to receive. A copy of the Sutton East Tennis Club six week extension agreement has also not been made available.
Last week Community Board 8 took a strong position against the Parks Department's actions and approved a resolution by a vote of 36 to 0.
In a April 23rd letter to Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe, (below) the Board pointed out that the Parks Departement agreed in 2010 to honor "THE PUBLIC’s desire to maintain the Queensboro Oval Park as a public space for sports leagues and for the use of the community at large for four straight months each year. " They also stated that the public should be compensated for the six-weeks of lost access to the Queensboro Oval this spring by extending public access to the park by six weeks this fall and revert to the original agreement of four consecutive months.
Questions have been raised once again why the community was only finding out about this deal now, when since at least December 2011 Sutton East Tennis Club has been advertising tennis through June 14th, long after the ballfields are supposed to be available to the public.
This lack of transparency is particularly inflammatory considering the last time the issue of the extending the tennis concession surfaced in 2010 was when the agency's revenue division struck a behind closed door deal to allow the private tennis club on public park to go from seasonal to year-round. The Community Board vote came five months after the concessionaire had already signed a contract with Parks. Opponents of the plan charge they had not been properly notified of the proposal.
For over 40 years, The Queensboro Oval Field, located along York Avenue under the 59th Street Bridge in Manhattan, has been a home to baseball, softball, soccer, football, schools, leagues, families, joggers, and children learning to ride bikes and pick-up recreation activities in a beloved public park. It has been and continues to be a vital resource for countless people.
Betsy Smith is scheduled to appear this evening at 6:30 pm at a special CB 8's Parks committee meeting. (See Below)
Queensboro Oval Park Ballfield (Image: Google)
For much of the year, the Queensboro Oval park under the Ed Koch Queensboro Bridge is rented out to a concessionaire to operate a tennis bubble. But for the past several years, every spring the giant bubble is dismantled to make way for softball and baseball leagues. This year, however, the Parks Department has decided to shave six weeks off the ball-playing season and give that time to the Sutton East Tennis Club, a move that has some Upper East Side residents seeing red, according to Our Town.
Two years ago, the Parks Department backed off of a plan to allow the tennis bubble to remain operational all year after strong opposition from the community, allowing sports groups access to the space for four months every summer. The community didn’t find out about the recently determined extended tennis season until it was announced at a Community Board 8 committee meeting two weeks ago, and the full board strongly condemned the move, resolving to ask the Parks Department to extend the baseball permit season by six weeks into the fall to compensate for the lost time.
“I feel that it is a slap in the face to the parks committee, to CB 8, to the users of the field and to the people of the community board, not only 8 but 6, and other residents of the city who have seen this grow and grow and grow—this beast taking over a public park in your community,” said resident Bradley Cohen at the meeting.
Cohen said he couldn’t get an answer for weeks on why his request for a permit for ball playing was delayed, even though the Parks Department was in the middle of negotiating this new arrangement.
Parks Department Assistant Commissioner Betsy Smith, who has agreed to attend the upcoming CB 8 Parks Committee meeting on Thursday, April 26 to answer questions, said in a statement that the reason the Department decided to extend the tennis season was that “the Sutton East Tennis Club had already made a substantial investment to convert the bubble to a year-round operation based on the execution of the contract amendment and its registration by the comptroller.
“It was therefore prudent to address the legitimate concerns raised by the concessionaire, and we reached an agreement with them to extend the indoor season by six weeks,” she said. She also called the ball fields “vastly underused.”
A Parks Department spokesperson said that the tennis bubble will be able to stay up until June 15 every year through 2017, when their current contract expires, and that they do not plan on offering extensions of ball field permits through the fall.
“I object to the Parks Department citing the investment that the tennis club put into the bubble, because the tennis club knows full well how the community feels about the availability of the park to the neighborhood. Calling for the need to be compensated for making improvements is disingenuous,” said board member Sarah Chu at the meeting, a sentiment that many others echoed.
The Community Board also voted to ask the Parks Department to require that the tennis club restore the park to its original state when they dismantle the bubble, and many members expressed dismay over the way the Department handled the entire situation.
Geoffrey Croft, who runs the watchdog group NYC Park Advocates, said it’s particularly frustrating because many community members fought so hard against the tennis bubble being allowed to stay up year round and thought they had secured their summer space.
“We successfully fought back against that, and now we find out about another underhanded move, that the city is trying to give this guy a deal because his contract from two years ago fell apart,” Croft said.
Meeting Date:
Thursday, April 26, 2012 - 6:30pm
Meeting Location:
New York Blood Center
310 East 67th Street (First-Second), Auditorium
New York, NY
- The Parks Dept.'s Betsy Smith will explain the Parks Dept.'s decision to reduce by six weeks this spring the public's access to the Queensboro Oval at E. 59th St.
Margaret Price and Barbara Rudder, Parks Committee Co-Chairs
April 23, 2012
Hon. Adrian Benepe
Commissioner
Department of Parks and Recreation
The Arsenal
830 Fifth Avenue
New York, New York 10021
Re: Discussion of the Parks Department's plans to extend until mid-June a tennis facility's use of the Queensboro Oval at East 59th St.
Dear Commissioner Benepe:
voting for cause:
WHEREAS Community Board 8M passed a resolution in February 2010, stating that it unequivocally opposes extending the use of the Queensboro Oval—which is public parkland— to a privately owned year-round franchise tennis facility, and maintains that the Oval must be made available for public use for four contiguous months a year; and
WHEREAS the Parks Dept. agreed in 2010 to honor THE PUBLIC’s desire to maintain the Queensboro Oval Park as a public space for sports leagues and for the use of the community at large for four straight months each year; and
WHEREAS the Parks Dept. has extended, without prior notice to the community, the terms of a private tennis facility’s use of the Queensboro Oval for an additional six weeks each year, thereby shortening the public’s ability to use the space by six weeks, and
WHEREAS the Queensboro Oval is typically left in disrepair when the tennis facility dismantles its “bubble” facility; therefore,
BE IT RESOLVED that Community Board 8, Manhattan, reaffirms its positions stated in its resolution of February, 2010 and urges the Parks Dept. to honor its agreement with the community to maintain the Queensboro Oval as public land for sports teams and the public at large for four contiguous months each year.
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that CB8M asks the Parks Dept. to compensate the public for six-weeks of lost access to the Queensboro Oval this spring by extending public access to the park by six weeks this fall and revert to the original agreement of four consecutive months starting in 2013, and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that CB8M urges the Parks Dept. to ensure that the Queensboro oval lessee restore the field to its proper parkland condition after the tennis bubble is dismantled.
Sincerely,
Nicholas D. Viest Margaret Price and Barbara Rudder
Chair Co-Chairs, Parks Committee
Read More:
A Walk In The Park - April 15, 2012 - Geoffrey Croft
A Walk In The Park - March 18, 2010 - By Geoffrey Croft
A Walk In The Park - February 17, 2010 - By Geoffrey Croft
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