DNAinfo
October 27, 2016

If the city doesn’t up their number by $15 million by noon Friday, the source said, Brodsky will sign the deed of the land over to a private buyer, the source said.  View Full CaptionCushman and Wakefield 

NORTH BROOKLYN —The city has until noon Friday to make another offer on the contested CitiStorage property it needs to piece together Bushwick Inlet Park, or the landowner will sign the property over to another buyer, according to a source familiar with the backroom negotiation.

The city’s most recent offer was still $15 million short of what CitiStorage property owner Norman Brodsky was willing to accept, the source said.

The two parties were nearing an agreement somewhere around $175 million for the 11-acre waterfront property, about halfway between the $100 million offered by the city in June and the $250 million Brodsky reportedly wanted for it, according to a source.

If the city doesn’t up its number by $15 million by noon Friday, Brodsky will sign the deed of the land over to a private buyer, the source said.

City negotiators would like to see proof that Brodsky has a buyer that is willing to offer that much more for the land, said Melissa Grace, a spokeswoman with the mayor’s press office.

“We continue to monitor the situation and to evaluate our options,” she said.

Advocates who have been getting updates on the behind-the-scenes negotiations from local elected officials, launched a campaign Thursday calling on North Brooklyn residents to tweet and call 311 on the mayor insisting the city step up and make a deal with Brodsky.

“We’re just kind of asking the administration to be steadfast in closing the deal,” said Steve Chesler, an advocate with Friends of Bushwick Inlet Park.

“We’re letting the city know that the community is still here,” he said. “The expectations are still very high for them to get that property.”

While Mayor Bill de Blasio announced the city’s $100 million offer on Twitter in June, a few weeks later Brodsky launched a public bidding process of his own, accepting offers for the land through the broker Cushman and Wakefield.

Community advocates called the public auction that they said flaunted the city’s offer a “real aggressive move” and “kind of grotesque.”

But that offer expired in August, and since then, negotiations between the mayor’s office and landowner Brodsky, have been ongoing out of the public eye, multiple sources said.

The city promised a 28-acre waterfront park to Williamsburg and Greenpoint residents during the 2005 rezoning that allowed for the explosion of residential towers along the East River. One section of the park is finished, another is being remediated, and purchase of another portion of the land was finalized in March.

But the CitiStorage site, which is located between the other two sections of future parkland, is the only piece left that is still privately owned, and encompasses an 11-acres swath of waterfront land, nearly half of the promised park’s area.

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