NY Waterway (NYWW) has secured the City of Hoboken Planning Board’s unanimous approval to temporarily conduct ferry maintenance operations on the Hoboken waterfront, allowing for a Lease between City and NYWW to settle a condemnation action.
The ferry company, which carries thousands of passengers across the Hudson River each day, had sought approval to repurpose the former Union Dry Dock property on the Hoboken waterfront to add barges and other improvements to temporarily operate a ferry maintenance facility.
After evaluating alternative sites for the Maintenance Facility, NYWW attempted to relocate to the former Union Dry Dock property on Sinatra Drive in Hoboken, but the City of Hoboken has long planned a park along Hoboken’s waterfront and, as a result, the property was the subject of an eminent domain action filed by Hoboken. NYWW opposed the City’s lawsuit, and Connell Foley played a pivotal role in negotiating a settlement, which the Court approved, that allows NYWW to enter into a Lease with Hoboken and to install minimal improvements to temporarily occupy a portion of the Sinatra Drive property for three years with the right to extend under certain circumstances for two additional years. As part of the settlement agreement, once NYWW obtains all approvals to temporarily relocate its Maintenance Facility to Hoboken, then the Lease period commences for the temporary facility. NYWW will lease the Hoboken site while it obtains approvals to construct the new Maintenance Facility in Weehawken.
Connell Foley attorneys Kevin Coakley and Nicole Dory, with assistance from Herschel Rose, helped NYWW to secure a hard-won agreement with Mayor Ravi Bhalla’s office, allowing the ferry company to lease back - for as many as five years - the Sinatra Drive property so that NYWW can temporarily locate its maintenance and refueling operations for the cross-Hudson public ferry transportation system. The agreement allows NYWW to temporarily relocate these facilities while the City advances its own plans to construct a future Maritime Park.
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