More than 25,000 conventioneers rolled in for the 102nd “Big Show” at the Javits Center this weekend―the retailing industry’s increasingly desperate annual attempt to assure itself that it’s not dying. Attendees heard from Donna Karan and Jeff Bezos and pondered “How Duane Reade reinvented itself as the quintessential New York brand.” One struggling big-box store hit upon the idea of “stopping the trend of showrooming.” Good luck with that.
At 8:30 on Sunday morning, a sea of lanyard-wearing drones moped into the Special Events Hall, looking like they had stayed up until 4 a.m. trying to persuade themselves that the rather tall “dates” they’d met downtown hadn’t been unusually deep-voiced.
After the packed presentation, Mr. Cunningham fleshed out the concept. He whipped out his laptop, covered in bumper stickers and a Razorbacks logo.As more shoppers spend more time on their mobile devices―there are 320 million wireless connections for 311 million Americans―the ability to hit shoppers where they shop is huge. The success of Mr. Cunningham’s companies had the whole room hanging on his every twangy insight.
“RetailMeNot has installed a geo-fence around the 500 biggest malls in America,” Mr. Cunningham told the Transom, explaining that anyone who’s downloaded its app will automatically be alerted to sales within that very mall the instant he or she enters its perimeter. How well does it work? “On the first day, every single one of those 500 malls was visited by someone with the app. It was like that scene in Minority Report where Tom Cruise is walking through the mall, and the logos of Lexus and Bulgari materialize before his eyes, because they know he’s there.”
The Marotta property is the planned site for the fields. The project includes removing debris, rubble, and old vehicles left on the site and cleaning up the contaminated soil left by the tanneries and gelatin factory formerly on the site. The site’s industrial history ended when a great fire in the vacant factory buildings in 1981 and the parcel was rezoned from light industrial to multi-family residential in 1987.
Residential developments proposed in 1985 and 2005 failed to win support, with the soil and the location next to the river being major hurdles.
The property, classified as a Ch. 21E site by the Department of Environmental Protection, has been subject to several site investigations since the mid-1980s. The club commissioned its own environmental testing and must perform remediation in accord with DEP standards. According to the NOI, the limit of soil disturbance will be confined within the limitations of the proposed erosion controls and will not take place in the wetland resource areas.
Clean fill left on site will be redistributed and the site re-graded for project construction. Stormwater management structures, part of a four-part stormwater management system to control runoff, are planned to be constructed under the proposed indoor facility.
Several wetlands issues have been addressed in the NOI. Wetland resource areas were delineated and flagged last year, as was the bank. A wetland scientist from WDG walked the site and reported finding no bordering vegetated wetlands. Reportedly, no natural heritage or endangered species habitats are found at the site. A 25-foot no-disturb buffer from the top of the bank is to be established as part of the development once the debris and invasive species are removed.
Plantings are proposed to enhance the edge of the 25-foot no-disturb area in the form of a thick hedgerow. Within the no-disturb zone, it is proposed to remove invasive species and plant a variety of native tree and shrubs “with high quality wildlife value” and to seed the no-disturb area with a wildlife food and shelter mix. Plantings are also planned to surround the foundation of the field house and the parking lot and to be placed in planters inside the parking lot.
Also under commission review are floodplain issues. Construction is proposed within the 100-year floodplain elevation. Compensatory flood storage is to be provided by lowering the elevation on portions of the site. WDG supplied no-rise certificate documentation which states that the development will not impact the 100-year flood elevation or floodway elevations of the river.
“The proposed development will not increase the elevation of the floodway at the site nor will it increase the floodway elevation upstream or downstream of this site,” the NOI states.
In addition to summarizing how the project meets regulations and will result in an improvement over existing conditions, the NOI also includes an analysis of alternative development options.
The first alternative is to leave site as is, contaminated and covered with debris.
A second option is a residential or commercial development. This, according to the NOI, would be difficult due to the amount of fill needed to bring potential buildings or parking areas out of the floodplain and the associated need to create compensatory flood storage.
A third alternative is to create a field layout with fewer fields or less parking. According to the NOI, “the current field and parking layout is the minimum practical layout for use as an athletic field park.”
Advantages of the Soccer Club’s proposal, as summarized in the NOI, include the provision of athletic fields, improvement of a previously disturbed and degraded site, enhancement of the wildlife habitat, and improvement of the overall flood storage at the site.
At 8:30 on Sunday morning, a sea of lanyard-wearing drones moped into the Special Events Hall, looking like they had stayed up until 4 a.m. trying to persuade themselves that the rather tall “dates” they’d met downtown hadn’t been unusually deep-voiced.
After the packed presentation, Mr. Cunningham fleshed out the concept. He whipped out his laptop, covered in bumper stickers and a Razorbacks logo.As more shoppers spend more time on their mobile devices―there are 320 million wireless connections for 311 million Americans―the ability to hit shoppers where they shop is huge. The success of Mr. Cunningham’s companies had the whole room hanging on his every twangy insight.
“RetailMeNot has installed a geo-fence around the 500 biggest malls in America,” Mr. Cunningham told the Transom, explaining that anyone who’s downloaded its app will automatically be alerted to sales within that very mall the instant he or she enters its perimeter. How well does it work? “On the first day, every single one of those 500 malls was visited by someone with the app. It was like that scene in Minority Report where Tom Cruise is walking through the mall, and the logos of Lexus and Bulgari materialize before his eyes, because they know he’s there.”
The Marotta property is the planned site for the fields. The project includes removing debris, rubble, and old vehicles left on the site and cleaning up the contaminated soil left by the tanneries and gelatin factory formerly on the site. The site’s industrial history ended when a great fire in the vacant factory buildings in 1981 and the parcel was rezoned from light industrial to multi-family residential in 1987.
Residential developments proposed in 1985 and 2005 failed to win support, with the soil and the location next to the river being major hurdles.
The property, classified as a Ch. 21E site by the Department of Environmental Protection, has been subject to several site investigations since the mid-1980s. The club commissioned its own environmental testing and must perform remediation in accord with DEP standards. According to the NOI, the limit of soil disturbance will be confined within the limitations of the proposed erosion controls and will not take place in the wetland resource areas.
Clean fill left on site will be redistributed and the site re-graded for project construction. Stormwater management structures, part of a four-part stormwater management system to control runoff, are planned to be constructed under the proposed indoor facility.
Several wetlands issues have been addressed in the NOI. Wetland resource areas were delineated and flagged last year, as was the bank. A wetland scientist from WDG walked the site and reported finding no bordering vegetated wetlands. Reportedly, no natural heritage or endangered species habitats are found at the site. A 25-foot no-disturb buffer from the top of the bank is to be established as part of the development once the debris and invasive species are removed.
Plantings are proposed to enhance the edge of the 25-foot no-disturb area in the form of a thick hedgerow. Within the no-disturb zone, it is proposed to remove invasive species and plant a variety of native tree and shrubs “with high quality wildlife value” and to seed the no-disturb area with a wildlife food and shelter mix. Plantings are also planned to surround the foundation of the field house and the parking lot and to be placed in planters inside the parking lot.
Also under commission review are floodplain issues. Construction is proposed within the 100-year floodplain elevation. Compensatory flood storage is to be provided by lowering the elevation on portions of the site. WDG supplied no-rise certificate documentation which states that the development will not impact the 100-year flood elevation or floodway elevations of the river.
“The proposed development will not increase the elevation of the floodway at the site nor will it increase the floodway elevation upstream or downstream of this site,” the NOI states.
In addition to summarizing how the project meets regulations and will result in an improvement over existing conditions, the NOI also includes an analysis of alternative development options.
The first alternative is to leave site as is, contaminated and covered with debris.
A second option is a residential or commercial development. This, according to the NOI, would be difficult due to the amount of fill needed to bring potential buildings or parking areas out of the floodplain and the associated need to create compensatory flood storage.
A third alternative is to create a field layout with fewer fields or less parking. According to the NOI, “the current field and parking layout is the minimum practical layout for use as an athletic field park.”
Advantages of the Soccer Club’s proposal, as summarized in the NOI, include the provision of athletic fields, improvement of a previously disturbed and degraded site, enhancement of the wildlife habitat, and improvement of the overall flood storage at the site.