Washington Sq Park Phase II Up Next!

Updated October 3rd

I don’t have any new details on Phase II of Washington Square Park’s redesign (like whether a bid was accepted for the work and what it will cost!) except it was slated to begin sometime this summer.

Phase II will see dramatic changes to : the Garibaldi Plaza, the Dog Runs, the “Teen Plaza” / Performance Area, the Chess Area, the “Mounds” and more!  A positive has been the Parks Department’s agreement to preserve four of the Park’s alcoves — one reconfigured on the Southeast side while the two on the East side and the one on the Northeast side of the Park will be preserved as they currently are.

If I was in charge of the plan, I would envision Phase II’s reconstruction in two parts, completing the work on the East side of the Park all at once while leaving the Southwest side open.  Once finished, I would focus on the other side.  This would be preferable to closing off two huge sections of this public park at once.  (Similar to what was unnecessarily done in Phase I with the Fountain and Plaza in addition to the whole NorthWest section of the park being off limits – all at the same time.)  This is a great opportunity for the Parks Department / the Bloomberg Administration to show that they have the interests of the community — as well as all New Yorkers and visitors —  in mind.

Phase III (projected date of work unknown) will encompass the comfort stations/bathrooms and the maintenance buildings on the South side of the Park.

Of course, an argument could also be strongly made for modification of the plan at this point, given budgetary and other constraints in this climate.

The original budget for all three phases of Washington Square Park’s reconstruction work was approved at $16 million.  However, Phase I of the project (which recently opened) ended up costing $13 million Update: $16 million ! and Phase II was estimated earlier this year at $14 million (Update: Bid came in at $9 million but let’s see the final numbers…).  Adding in Phase III,  we will see an original approved budget of $16 million likely doubled. It’ll be interesting to see what kind of NYC Parks Department and NY City Council oversight we might see in relation to this in the future.