NY Waterway Founder To Hoboken Council: Leave Dry Dock Alone

HOBOKEN, NJ — The founder of NY Waterway has a message for the Hoboken City Council: “don’t try to take our property at Union Dry Dock away.”

That’s what Arthur E. Imperatore, a member of the New Jersey Hall of Fame, had to say Thursday in his message to the city council. In his open letter to the council members, Imperatore pledged to fight for the company’s right to operate a maintenance facility on the Dry Dock property at 901 Sinatra Drive, which it purchased last year for $11.5 million.

City officials have been struggling with NJ Transit over the fate of the Union Dry Dock site. NJ Transit has expressed interest in purchasing the property and leasing it back to NY Waterway, a private company, for use as a ferry maintenance and refueling facility.

• See related article: Hoboken Continues Tug Of War Over Union Dry Dock
• See related article: NJ Transit Vote On Union Dry Dock In Hoboken Postponed

Last year, the Hoboken City Council authorized the use of eminent domain for the acquisition of the property to use as "open space." The ability to wield eminent domain allows government entities to force the sale of land at a "fair price" for the public good.

• See related article: Hoboken Council Greenlights Eminent Domain For Dry Dock

Imperatore’s letter follows below.

“On behalf of the thousands of New Jersey commuters who ride NY Waterway ferries every day, and on behalf of the thousands of additional commuters who take our ferries when other mass transit systems are disrupted, I urge the leaders of Hoboken: Do not try to take our property at Union Dry Dock away from us.

“NY Waterway must have this facility to maintain our ferry fleet, our +99 percent on-time performance record and our ability to respond in an emergency.

“We must and we will fight to protect our right to operate a ferry maintenance facility on this property, which we purchased last year for $11.5 million. We conducted a comprehensive 10- year search and this is the right location for this vitally-needed facility.

“The Union Dry Dock site has been used as a marine repair facility for more than a century. It is the only available site with the zoning required for NY Waterway to operate. There is no other available and suitable facility than Union Dry Dock with deep water, piers and heavy electrical power.

“It is right in the middle of NY Waterway’s core operating area, with commuter ferry routes operating from eight ferry terminals in Weehawken, Hoboken and Jersey City. This central location helps us control our operating costs.

“More important, it means our ferries are in the right place in an emergency, such as the 9/11 terrorist attacks in 2001, the 2003 blackout, the 2005 transit strike, Superstorm Sandy and countless disruptions to other transit systems. When these systems go down, NY Waterway must deploy extra ferries to carry more people on an emergency basis. We are part of the public mass transit system.

“Because of recent track problems which disrupted other public transit, NY Waterway ferries have carried hundreds of thousands of additional passengers in the last year. In the latest example of a weather emergency, our ferries were pressed into additional service March 7 when a winter storm forced NJ TRANSIT to suspend all bus operations.

“NY Waterway can’t provide that type of emergency service if our ferries are docked more than eight miles away in Bayonne. That’s 45 minutes running time. And that doesn’t count the time it would take to get our crews to Bayonne.

“No passenger ferry service in the New York area has a maintenance facility more than two miles away from its core service area.

“Moving our ferry docking and maintenance facility to the remote Bayonne site would add more than $3 million per year to the cost of our operations. Since NY Waterway receives no operating subsidy from the government, we must pass on this $3 million cost to our customers in the form of higher fares.

“No viable site for this maintenance facility has been identified and no one has addressed the actual cost of preparing a site and forcing us to move there – a cost which would be tens and tens of millions of dollars beyond what you are authorizing. And it would require years to prepare another site as well equipped as Union Dry Dock.

“Who will pay these costs? Hoboken taxpayers? All New Jersey taxpayers in the form of state funding? And who will pay the further costs of converting this site to parkland? You should answer these questions and consider the consequences before you proceed.

“Once more, I urge the Hoboken Mayor and City Council: Let NY Waterway keep its property at the Union Dry Dock site and use this property to give our customers, and all the people of the region, the best ferry service possible.”

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File Photo: City of Hoboken