The city took the first step today on an ambitious plan to redevelop the riverfront from the University of Rochester area through downtown and north past the High Falls area.
At a press conference at the Riverside Convention Center, Governor Andrew Cuomo announced that he has accepted plans for 13 of the projects in the city’s ROC the Riverway plan. They’ll be partially funded by a $50 million state grant.
An advisory board led by Chamber of Commerce President Bob Duffy and Monroe Community College President Anne Kress selected the 13 projects from more than two dozen that city officials included in ROC the Riverway.
They range from large, expensive projects like restructuring the Broad Street bridge and expanding the Convention Center and Blue Cross Arena to smaller ones like a skate park. All have the same goal: to give the public greater access to one of its prime assets: the Genesee River.
At today’s press conference, work began symbolically on one of the projects: officials broke ground on the Convention Center expansion. And officials say that work could begin on almost all of the others within the next year.
The 13 were chosen, says the mayor’s chief of staff, Alex Yudelson, because the advisory board thinks they’ll have the greatest impact on downtown and are likely to encourage further development along the river, both public and private.
Each of the 13 will go through the normal development approval process: meeting the city’s zoning and planning requirements, for instance, and getting City Council’s OK for funding.
The public will have a chance to provide input about how each is designed, Yudelson said this morning. But all of them, he said, “are actually happening.”
At least one project may face some public pushback: the plan to remove Broad Street as it crosses the river – which forms a deck on top of the historic Erie Canal aqueduct –and turn the aqueduct into a pedestrian walkway. For years, there’s been disagreement about plans for the aqueduct.
Some supporters of the historic structure have argued that the aqueduct should remain covered, preserving the graffiti inside it and making it available for public use. Others have wanted it restored and filled with water.
Yudelson said this morning that the advisory board heard those concerns during the public-input process on the full ROC the Riverway plan. But, he said, “the advisory board is committed” to removing Broad Street and taking the bridge back to the elevation of the original canal.
The bridge has two sets of arches, and the top set is fake, Yudelson noted. It’s part of the structure that holds up the Broad Street roadway. Those arches will be removed, as will the graffiti in that part of the bridge.
The original, lower arches will remain. So will at least some of the graffiti.
“The city is committed to preserving the graffiti,” Yudelson said, “whether all of it or some.” Graffiti in the tunnel leading to the bridge will remain, and some of the panels removed from the bridge itself could be preserved somewhere else.
“We’re committed to preserving that history and allowing that artform to live on,” Yudelson said. And the city plans to make space available for new graffiti to be created, he said.
The $50 million state grant will cover design, planning, and part of the construction for the projects, says Yudelson. That won’t fully pay for any of the 13 projects, so some money will come from the city, and some from private sources. But city officials are confident that ROC the Riverway’s initial investment will attract more funding, Yudelson says.
Advisory board members began meeting with a wide-ranging collection of neighborhood, community, and business groups last February to learn what people wanted to see most in the ROC the Riverway ideas. In more than two dozen meetings, what board members heard could be boiled down to two overriding concerns, Yudelson says: providing residents and tourists with much greater access to the river, and connecting downtown with the river and nearby neighborhoods.
The 13 projects
The Aqueduct and Riverfront Promenade: Plans call for removing the Broad Street deck and closing it off to vehicle traffic. The deck would become a pedestrian bridge that can be accessed from both sides, and the Erie Canal would be fully or partially re-watered.
The advisory board considers the aqueduct the centerpiece of ROC the Riverway, but it’s structurally complex, Yudelson says. It’s the only project of the 13 where all of the funds will go to developing a highly detailed redesign.
Phase I: $4.5 million for the $60 million project, primarily for design work.
Charles Carroll Plaza: The 3 1/2 acre park on the west side of the river between Main Street and Andrews Street is severely deteriorated. But redeveloping it, city officials say, could bring the river into focus and transform downtown. The plan is to open up the park, adding green space, regrading the area down to the river level, and removing the walls that block views of the water.
Phase I: $20 million for the $28 million project that will also include improvements to Sister Cities Bridge, Crossroads Park Garage, and Crossroads Park on the east side of the river.
Blue Cross Arena: The venue greatly impacts the downtown economy, but it’s too small for many acts. And like several buildings downtown, it’s built next to the river but provides little access to it. Plans call for a major expansion of the building to add more space for events and concession areas, better views of the river, and access to a larger terrace area over the river.
Phase I: $6 million for the $37 million project.
Riverside Convention Center: Like the Arena, the Convention Center is vitally important to the downtown economy, but it’s too small. The plan is for a 130,000-square-foot expansion that would increase exhibit space and would include a large, glass-enclosed ballroom overlooking the river. The terrace, which is currently closed, would be widened at the south end, offering views of the river.
Phase I: $5 million for the $25 million project.
ROC City Skate Park: The park is a public-private project to be created with Friends of the ROC City Skate Park. It would be located under the Douglass-Anthony Bridge on the east side of the river and would include a promenade, mini-ramps and ledges, and skate bowls.
Phase I: $1 million of a $2 million project.
Genesee Gateway Park: The underutilized park along the east side of the river between Ford Street and the Douglass-Anthony Bridge would be redeveloped to offer recreational access to the river for small, non-motorized crafts like canoes, kayaks, and rowboats.
Phase I: $2 million toward the $4.5 million project.
Corn Hill Navigation: The non-profit’s Mary Jemison canal tour boat was retired in 2013. Funding would add a new tour boat to the river and canal with a focus on education about the river’s history and ecology.
Phase I: $250,000 for the $500,000 project.
Rundel Library: Plans are for a redesigned terrace area that provides space for outdoor activities and seating, as well as great views of the aqueduct and the river.
Phase I: $1.5 million for the $8 million project.
Front Street Promenade: The vacant land at 84 Andrews Street, owned by RG&E, is considered a prime location along the downtown riverfront. Environmental remediation on the site has been completed, and the city envisions a promenade on the river and the opportunity for a 100,000-square-foot-building that could be used for residential and office purposes.
Phase I: $1.25 million for the $10 million project.
Pont de Rennes Bridge: The bridge spans the gorge just north of the High Falls and provides some of the best views of the falls. Plans are for structural repairs to the bridge and the addition of public art, new lighting, and plantings.
Phase I: $4 million for the $8.5 million project.
High Falls Terrace Park: Located on the east side of the gorge, the park is one of the city’s oldest and offers some of the most dramatic views of the river. Plans call for making the trail along the gorge wider and more accessible, and for clearing vegetation for better views of the gorge.
Phase I: $1 million for the $1.25 million project.
Running Track Bridge: This former railway bridge, which crosses the river north of Smith Street, needs to be repaired and stabilized. It could then serve as a pedestrian bridge connecting the Edgerton Park neighborhood with the eastside area surrounding the El Camino Trail.
Phase I: $500,000 for the $5 million project.
Downtown Riverfront Management Entity: Board members were strongly advised by officials in other cities that have already undertaken waterfront redevelopment that a professional management and marketing team is essential. Big developments like this require a team of people trained in event and festival planning and staging, promoting activities, and maintaining safe and clean grounds throughout the year.
Phase I: $3 million.
ROC the Riverway has been years in the making
Several administrations recognized the importance of Rochester’s waterfront areas, but this is the first administration to come up with a comprehensive plan of this scope. City officials say they’re confident that this project will transform Rochester’s downtown area in the same way similar projects have in other cities.
But ROC the Riverway’s kick-start of $50 million isn’t a big number when it comes to building and development. City officials and the advisory board members envision ROC the Riverway as 15-year, multi-phase process with a total cost of $500 million.
Although both Yudelson and Duffy agree that $50 million isn’t a lot, they say it’s enough to start with, and it will encourage additional funds from public and private sources.
Governor Cuomo, Duffy said in an interview earlier this summer, likes to see the private sector add $4 or $5 to every $1 from the state. Cuomo, Duffy said, “wants to see skin in the game.”
Duffy insists that there is plenty of investment funding available in the Rochester area. The return on that investment for the city’s economy, he said, is estimated at $2.5 billion.
A bigger concern, Duffy said, is keeping the enthusiasm and momentum going for the projects. In advisory board members’ meetings with community groups, there was a lot of excitement about the 13 initial projects because they’re all public-use projects, not private developments, and they’ll provide more opportunities for biking, running, hiking, boating, and outdoor music and entertainment, Duffy said.
“There’s not a dog in the bunch,” he said. But he’s still concerned.
“It’s in Rochester’s DNA,” Duffy said. “We’ll meet on these projects and enthusiasm is there and then we’ll get to a point where everything just stops. That’s why we’re hoping for a couple of ‘wow’ projects during the next three to five years. We need excitement.”
In his travels, Duffy has watched as other cities that don’t have waterfront assets as strong as Rochester’s become reinvigorated from their projects, while Rochester has languished, he said.
“It’s not because of a lack of wealth or money,” Duffy said. “This is the time to think big and think bold.”
This article appears in Aug 1-7, 2018.
The airport gets a $79 million upgrade with a swoopy canopy in front. The city gets similarly expensive window dressing along the river.
With poverty, extremely low graduation rates, a heroine epidemic and homeless encampments, the airport and river projects are just lipstick on a pig. Sorry, Rochester, that’s just an expression.
I do not understand how anyone could approve spending this kind of money on mostly cosmetic items while people are jobless, hungry and homeless. If we could all work to resolve the serious problems, Rochester would be an awesome city and not just a city that hides serious problems behind shiny new facades.
City should start a pool on the date when the first “Rochester Millions” embezzlement arrest will be made.
Those who wonder why this money couldn’t be spent on actually helping people rather than on cosmetic window dressing need to understand that politician’s can’t get their egos stroked by having their names engraved on social programs. But they can get their names on big brass plaques that get fastened to physical structures, no matter how worthless.
So Mr. Janowski, are you suggesting the city should never invest in its future until these social issues are solved? We can debate the merits of each individual idea in this plan, and each respective investment in dollars that they will take, but can we please have that debate in the context of the return on investment we may experience? And by “return” I mean the tangible contribution to the quality of life in our city, and the potential for each investment to contribute to the future economic health of the community.
Why must every single proposal for investment and growth in our city be immediately countered with the argument that there are poor people. Is there such little understanding of economics that people actually believe the answer to our ills is to just hand out money and “create” jobs out of thin air? Who will create these jobs if there is no REASON to live or locate a business in Rochester? Now more than every before, every business owner, every job-creator makes a CONSCIOUS decision about where to locate and invest. If we rot into oblivion, that will be a never-ending vicious cycle.
Please Rochester… expand your vision. Dream a little. Take a chance on the belief that a city must GROW. It must grow to survive. An *honest* dollar spent investing in the beauty and live-ability of our city is returned manifold. Let’s focus our efforts on making sure these investments are honestly and transparently made. And then celebrate and enjoy!
I’m confused. The governor sprinkled money around , but nothing is 100 percent funded. Gotta love election year pork.
It looks to me like City Hall held a contest to come up with an even more brain dead idea than the dommed Less-Than-Fast Ferry. And the winner was Bob Duffy’s 2010 proposal to tear out the Broad Street Bridge (center city Rochester’s most important and most-traveled street-level river crossing ) and replace it with a stagnant frog pond. Going to be a hoot listening to the explanations about how all that traffic can be easily and safely diverted to the other bridges (especially in the winter). As to the loss of a significant number of parking spaces, c’est la vie.
Mike G. – You just regurgitated many of the same Blue Sky arguments Bill Johnson and others paraded out to justify the expenditure of scores of millions of scare tax dollars on the Toronto ferry. So how’s that working out for you?
Well, yes, Stevie S. Guilty as charged to a degree. I certainly prefer blue sky to doom and gloom, but we all agree there needs to be a certain level-headedness to our visions for progress. There’s a degree of economic naivete’ in many ideas that originate from government/politicians, but there’s clearly been an honest, thorough, and collaborative effort put forth here with this plan and these integrated projects. Yeah, some are a bit pie in the sky, and maybe they won’t return 5:1 on the investment. But I’d much prefer we keep trying, keep growing, keep innovating, then allowing our beautiful region to decay and fall behind competitively. And to the point about the Fast Ferry: sure it ultimately failed, and there was some financial wonkiness there that should have been much more transparent and vetted. But it actually could have worked long-term if not for two factors: 1) As soon as it launched, gas prices soared to almost $5, ruining the economics, and 2) They went too big with the ship hoping to transport 18-wheelers across international waters in a 9/11 world. A more modest ship focused on cars and people might be running to this day. All that said, even if we accept complete failure of Fast Ferry, Renaissance Square, et al, we must also remember that every single amenity we have as a city–every single park, auditorium, beach, hotel, public pool, hospital, museum, bike path–EVERYTHING we have that we didn’t have in 1834 was the direct result of someone deciding to build, someone deciding to take a chance, someone with a dream to make things better for the community. It all took money and risk and sweat and belief. Let’s believe in our city. Let’s invest in creating the ENVIRONMENT for jobs and healthy lifestyles and economic success–instead of imploring someone else to just “make” jobs or take care of the poor.
Mike G. – A simple analogy will demonstrate the fallacy of your underlying premise. Say a family is living paycheck to paycheck with high balances on their credit cards. They can barely keep food on the table and pay the mortgage and other household expenses necessary to keep their home in one piece. Do you recommend that they go even further in debt by spending thousands to improve their quality of life by adding a new porch, lots of landscaping, and a swimming pool? I suspect you’d answer “no”. So why in god’s name should a virtually bankrupt city (and state) spend millions on the same sort of window dressing? Not one of these proposed projects is remotely necessary for the maintenance of the city’s infrastructure (which has serious problems). Not one of them improves the safety of our city streets (indeed, the Broad Street Bridge proposal may even jeopardize such safety). Not one of them address the issue of homelessness or the failed city school system. Not one of then comes accompanied with anything remotely resembling an unbiased business case that shows a positive return on the investment. The best that can be said of any of them is that they might make the place look better. To that end I suggest you read up on the subject of “Potempkin Villages”.
As to the reasons behind the failed fast ferry. Give me a break! Are you aware that the business case used by CATS and Bill Johnson to promote the plan claimed that the ferry would sail three times a day , over 300 days a year (apparently there are no winters in Rochester) , and would carry over 100,000 riders the first year who would spend $92,000,000 in our area? When the physical impossibility of the plan was pointed out by opponents, including the fact that the ferry (counting loading and unloading) would actually be a slower trip to and from Toronto than driving, we found that the local media wasn’t interested in reporting any negative comments about Bill’s Barge. The rise in gas prices only helped to drive another nail into the coffin of an already dead and buried pipe dream.
Carl Carson – Those are all valid points about Rochester’s floating fiasco, the Toronto Ferry.. Here are two additional observations. First, the alleged business case that CATS and Johnson put together stated that there would be 1 MILLION, not 100,000, riders in Year 1, using an total of 3 round trips a day, 350, not 300, days a year. Dividing that 1,000,000 by the 6 trips X 350 days gave an average of 476 riders per trip, week in and week out. When I and several others others asked for a meeting with the then assistant mayor, who Johnson had put in charge of the project, to discuss the impossibility of that number, he refused to see us on the grounds that we weren’t “stakeholders”. When it was pointed out that all local and state taxpayers were “stakeholders” I believe we used the term “bagholders”, he hung up. I assume that opponents of the current crop of bright ideas will be given equal short shrift. Lastly, those who try to argue that the ferry was killed by unforeseen and unforeseeable economic conditions better talk to Toronto and ask why they laughed up their sleeves about the ferry from it’s very inception and, unlike Bill Johnson who plunked down 20 million taxpayer bucks on our terminal, opted to put up a shanty for theirs.
I find it interesting that while posts which do no more than refer to another comment on another story as “sanctimonious” get deleted by City, a tasteless comment such as, “On the other hand, as Rupaul might tell you, a little lip gloss and a solid pair of f*ck-me pumps can make a world of difference” is allowed. The First Amendment here is VERY flexible.
The first amendment has nothing to do with what City decides to remove or leave in. Up until you brought that up, I agreed with your point.
Sorry Musician, this issue does fall under the First Amendment to the extent that, while a media outlet may have the right to set forth and enforce specific and detailed terms of service for comments, I for one am unwilling to grant them the right to censor comments based on personal bias and arbitrary standards such as those Sullivan mentioned.
Please cite the clause in the first amendment that would apply to decisions a news organization makes. “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”
What part of, “while a media outlet may have the right to set forth and enforce specific and detailed terms of service for comments, I for one am unwilling to grant them the right to censor comments based on personal bias and arbitrary standards such as those Sullivan mentioned” wasn’t clear? The distinction here is between legal and moral obligations. A better question would be. are you willing to grant the media, particularly a paper which claims to be an “alternative” to the MSM, that right to personal bias and arbitrary decisions on censorship (regardless if whether they’ve already done so)?
Is that right really yours to grant?
Filling in the Inner Loop and removing the Broad St bridge for car traffic both seem to be ways of planning for fewer cars in the city, not more that could come with all the developments.
It’s true that Rochester has all sorts of problems to address and challenges to face.
It’s true that many of these challenges – poverty, heroin, and education – are more severe than the beautification of the riverfront.
I hope we can work on more than one problem at a time.
Can’t we make preschool available for all 3-year-olds, AND create a pleasant pedestrian bridge?
Can’t we “reimagine RTS,” AND create river access for kayaks?
I want better education, transportation, economic development…and I’d also like nice places to walk, live, and recreate.
Perhaps it *is* putting lipstick on a pig. On the other hand, as Rupaul might tell you, a little lip gloss and a pair of killer heels can make a world of difference.
— edited by user to remove an expletive