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                                    Brooklyn Hotel Mav Be In The Wines. Studv Savs %u00ab# ~ ~ ~ ^ ~ ' %u25a0 ' I %u2022> orThe Meyers Parking Lot at Pierrepont and Court Streets is the first choicefor a hotel according to new consultant%u2019s study. (Cuiccio Photo)BY LIBBY HAYMANA yet to be released 40-page study of the market for a hotel in Downtown Brooklyn recently conducted by a consulting firm has concluded that the Borough can support a 350 room hotel, but the report also has raised again the question, %u201c Where can we put it?%u201d The site selected by the study, the Meyer%u2019s Parking Lot at Court and Pierrepont, known as the %u201c Pierrepont site%u201d is at the edge of Brooklyn Heights, where residents are concerned that ho... development might be harmtui to the neighborhood.It was concern about community reaction to the different sites discussed in the report which led the Office of Economic Development (OED) who commissioned the study to delay the release until meetings had been held and materials prepared concerning the way the community would have input into planning for a hotel. The delay did not work out, since last week the %u2018Daily News%u2019 obtained the report and released its basic contents. Official release is still being put off at least another week, despite the %u201c leak%u201d .The study was conducted by Lavcnthol and Horwath, a Certified Public Accountant firm which specializes in analyzing the market for hotels and other facilities. It was commissioned in June by OED with the City paying nearly $10,000 for the study. OED had been working along with CongressmanBY LINUS GELBERWhile several Community Boards across the city are having some hardships in meeting earlyNovember deadlines for the submission of local budget priorities, Community Board Six handed-in its 39 funding proposals last Friday. Other Boards ran up against last-minute problems in getting full Board meetings to okay all the individual priorities, but Board Six. anticipating messy deadlines, chose at its Oct. 10 meeting to let the Budget Committee and Chair of the Board make the necessary choices. The decisions will then be reviewed when the Board next meets on Nov. 14, and later on in February when extensive public hearings will be held for community input in the matter.The first ten of the 39 requests, designed to snare city money forRichmond and Borough President Howard Golden%u2019s office in discussions of hotel planning for many months, and the study, which was an update of one done for Brooklyn Union Gas more than a year ago, was sought to give potential developers the necessary figures on which to base planning.The consultants looked at fourlocal projects, are, in order, to set up a local headquarters of the Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) in the Columbia St. area, to help supervise the progress of Urban Renewal plans for that spot; to rehabilitate the Red Hook Stadium, which has fallen into major disrepair; to deck a 200 foot portion of the BrooklynQueens Expressway around Union St. as a pedestrian bridge; to repair various streets throughout the Board%u2019s area; to ask HPD to support and provide subsidizing for Columbia Street Urban Renewal housing; to target HPD housing rehabilitation loans for the Fifth Avenue corridor, the southern part of Park Slope, parts of Gowanus and the Red Hook and Waterfront neighborhoods; to continue the commercial revitalization of Union Street; to repair and upgrade partssites, the Pierrepont site, the Fulton Ferry-Empire Stores area, the two blocks at Fulton and Flatbush with the Granada Hotel at the corner, and the air rights over the Albee Square Mall and %u201c the proposed department store in Downtown Brooklyn.%u201d The last site was found to be less %u201c advantageous\of J. J. Byrne Park; to revitalize the Fifth Avenue corridor in Park Slope; and to rehabilitate Carroll Park.District Manager Joan White said that in most cases the Board had shied away from requesting specific dollar amounts for the projects, because in the past such a procedure had resulted in projects that were squeezed, tightened or otherwise scaled down because initial estimates proved to be less than what was eventually necessary. She also noted that, while the projects had not specifically been approved, item by item, by the full Board, they had nonetheless the %u201c tacit approval%u2019%u2019 of the body, through the power that had been given to the Budget Committee and Chair.probably a good thing, since the site doesn%u2019t really exist. The plans of Rcntar Development Corp., who are building Albee Square Mall, to develop an Alexanders Department Store on the former Martins site, fell thorough in mid-August (the study is supposed to be valid up to August 31). Felice Bassin, spokesperson for Rentar, says that a hotel over Albee Square %u201c will never happen.%u201d (The closing on purchase of the Martins site by a private developer, Richard Carroll, has not taken place yet, but Bassin did not indicate any new plans by Rentar to seek the site again.)Of the three other sites, one, the Fulton Ferry site, was found suitable by the study for a %u201c luxury\first class hotel, with rooms in the $50 per night range, which the study says that Brooklyn can support.On the subject of the luxury hotel, the study says that %u201c such a development might be justifiable in 1986\that a luxury hotel %u201c is not recommended%u201d at this time. Development of a luxury hotel at Fulton Ferry is tentatively planned by Anthony Vaccarello, of DeMattcis Construction Company. Vacarcllo, who reported during the summer that two architects%u2019 firms, Edward Durrcll Stone and Edward V. Giannasco, had drawn preliminary plans for an %u201c exciting%u201d hotel design, incorporating the historic Empire Stores, responded favorably to reports about the latest hotel study. \hear about it,%u201d Vaccarello said, adding that he would have to %u201c see the report itself\ing on it further. Vaccarello said that he would be met mg shortly with Borough Hall officials but neither Vaccarello nor Deputy Borough President Harvey Schultz feels that the 1986 date given in the study should discourage them from proceeding with Fulton Ferry plans.The other sites, one near the Brooklyn Academy, the other near Brooklyn Heights, were seen by the study as having the advantages of convenience to the downtown area and to transportation. The Granada Hotel, which could be renovated as part of the development, is an incentive to the site near BAM, but the study says, %u201c the character of the neighborhood%u201d would be %u201c less than favorable\Opposition of Brooklyn Heights residents to a hotel at the Pierrepont site is not a known quantity. James Masters, President of the Brooklyn Heights Association, pointsout that the organization has never had a %u201c position against%u201d a hotel there, but would want to work at %u201c the earliest opportunity%u201d with any developer contemplating the site, because Heights residents are concerned about the scale of a hotel and parking facilities. In the study, parking at the Pierrepont site was estimated for 200 cars, fewer than usual because of the %u201c excellent mass transit%u201d facilities.While Schultz, at Borough Hall, and Mark Ahasic, the staffperson for Congressman Richmond who has been involved with hotel planning, both agree that the study is not the %u201c final word%u201d and that community input will be provided for, they do welcome the findings of the study that institutions such asthe courts, hospitals, manufacturing concerns and the Watchtowcr, headquarters of the Jehovah%u2019s Witnesses, can support a hotel. The study, though, includes Baruch College as a source of demand, which it says will move to Brooklyn %u201c between 1983 and 1990.%u201dAs for providing for community input, Marcia Rimlcr, Chairman of the Community Board Two Planning and District Development Committee, says that the committee has not been consulted sufficiently to date. Rimler feels that the Board should have received the study when the city agencies did, since the Board is itself a City Agency, and adds that it is %u201c for the Board to decide how to have input%u201d , not for elected officials and oilters to decide.Board Six Submits Budget Items WhileOthers Have Trouble With DeadlinesCenter, After Losing Boss, May Also Lose FundingBY STEPHEN HALBERSTROHAND IRENE VAN SLYKEAfter the resignation of its Executive Director, for reasons nobody involved wants to discuss, the South Brooklyn Health Center is now trying to convince the federal Department of Health, Education and Welfare (HEW), its funding agency, that it can competently handle its $3 million budgeted health center.The South Brooklyn Health Center (SBHC) has its headquarters in Red Hook on Richards Street. It also has a satellite in the Jubilee Senior Citizen Center in Brooklyn Heights, is planning another one in the former Pierrepont Hotel wherer>%u00abt%u00abTonc o **r> m m / i n o i n t o fc,V***V'* V, %u00bbI%u00bb-V%u00bb4W ~ *--- ---Otheir new apartments and plans a satellite in the Park Slope 5th Avenue area.The resignation came at an unpropitious time since the health center was due for a $300,000 supplemental grant and was applying for a renewal of its grant application requiring an extensive review process both by the Health Systems Agency and HEW.When the Executive Director, Jeffrey Latman, wrote his letter of resignation on August 7, the HEW regional office suggested to the 25 member Board of Directors headed by Nancy Gooden Dixon that it be %u201c deferred%u201d until a new project director could be found but on September 28th Latman resigned and the process to find a new director is not expected to finishuntil lo n it a n ; 1QROPeyton Kuhltau of HEW%u2019s Regional Office says the resignation %u201c came at a bad time%u201d and that nowwith a temporary project director HEW will %u201c pay close attention%u201d to the center until they come up with a new director and even then would %u201c give the center more attention than usual%u201d until the agency has confidence that the center is run competently. In fact HEW stated in an October 3 letter that the %u201c absence of an approved Project Director could cause a lapse in grant funding.%u201dKuhltau also points out that just before Latman resigned an evaluation by his office showed that the center was managed well and Kuhltau adds it is unusual for someone to resign %u201c after they have gotten a good report card.\The onlv thinp evervone agrees on is that there was a difference of opinion between the Board Chairperson Nancy Gooding Dixon andthe Executive Director Jeffrey Latman but all Latman wants to say is t hai he did not expect to resign %u201c in the way it came about%u201d and that %u201c good people left%u201d the center %u201c because of what was going on.%u201dIn his letter of resignation Latman points to his accomplishments citing an unfavorable evaluation of the center before he came on board, expansion of the center%u2019s services during his tenure and a recent favorable evaluation bv HEW.Dixon, however, criticizes Latman calling him %u201c impossible to work for.%u201d She also minimizes Laiman%u2019s accomplishments by saying that \involved in all the center%u2019s accomplishments.%u201d and adds that the %u201c South Brooklyn Health Center w'ould have gotten a satisfactoryevaluation anyway.One day after the Latman resignation the Board of Directors elected a new Board Chairperson, Michael Rubino, who strongly disagrees with Dixon saying that he was %u201c very happy with Latman%u2019s performance\Dixon of doing %u201c a hatchet job all the way down the line,%u201d and attributes the center%u2019s problems to the DixonLatman %u201c personality conflict.%u201dIn an October 4th meeting the Board of Directors voted 18 for, with one abstention to retain Latman as a consultant and hired Lorraine Hicrs, SBHC%u2019s fiscal director as the temporary Acting Director; the single abstention in the vote was of Dixon the present Vice Chairperson of the Board,November 8.1979. The PHOENIX, Page 3
                                
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