By Dustin Brown
A squabble over a parking lot in West Maspeth has pitted the Duane Reade drugstore chain against the New York City Fire Department, whose request to acquire the land was rejected by the local community board last week.
Community Board 2, which covers the communities of Woodside, Sunnyside and parts of Long Island City and Maspeth, voted last Thursday to reject an application by the Fire Department to acquire the property at 50-02 55th Ave. and 58-80 Borden Ave. “for continued use as a parking facility.” The vote was 14-3 with five abstentions.
The application will now be considered by the borough president’s office and the City Planning Commission, both of which will offer recommendations before the City Council votes on it.
The FDNY uses the lot, which is located next to its repair facility in industrial Maspeth, to park vehicles and equipment that might otherwise take up limited streetside parking spaces.
CB 2 Chairman Joseph Conley said the Fire Department formerly parked vehicles in an area of Sunnyside so inundated with fire equipment that it became known as “Red Square.”
“If we lose this parking lot, it’ll be back to the bad old days where we park all over the neighborhood,” said Assistant Fire Commissioner Roy Katz.
But the representative for Duane Reade, a rapidly expanding chain of drugstores that has grown from 70 stores in 1998 to 190 at present, said the parking lot was desperately needed for trucks visiting its warehouse on the same site.
“We have always had our sights set on this property,” said Duane Reade Senior Vice President Bill Tennant. “We’ve been growing out of this warehouse.”
The warehouse covers 450,000 square feet on a 590,000-square-foot property. Of the 140,000 square feet remaining for the parking lot, two-thirds is presently occupied by the Fire Department, while the rest is used by Duane Reade.
The Fire Department had leased the parking facility until its expiration in 1992, when it entered into a license agreement with Federated Department Stores, which leases the property from its owners, the Goldman family.
Although the agreement allowed the FDNY to use the property on a month-by-month basis, it also meant the arrangement could be terminated on 30 days’ notice, according to Goldman attorney Vincent Petraro.
After Duane Reade approached the landlord with a request to lease the parking lot, Federated informed the Fire Department in April that it would be terminating their agreement — after which the FDNY submitted its request to acquire the land to the community board.
The Goldman family opposed the application because it only said the Fire Department would “acquire” the property, but did not specify what would happen to it after the fact.
“It could be lease, it could be purchase, it could be condemnation,” Petraro said. “The application is so wide and broad that it could mean condemnation, which would severely impact the value of this land.”
Representatives of the Fire Department did not return repeated phone calls by press time.
“It’s really something that’s needed, but we’ve got to find the right home for it,” Conley said.
Reach reporter Dustin Brown by e-mail at Timesledger@aol.com or call 229-0300, Ext. 154.
