The East Side Coastal Resiliency project (ESCR) is the first compartment of The BIG U design to move into implementation, with $335 million in HUD CDBG-DR funding, and the first major urban resilience project of its kind in the United States.
Scheduled to begin construction in late 2020, the ESCR compartment will protect the communities behind a 2.4 mile section of coastline along the East River, running from 25th Street in the East Village to Montgomery Street in the Lower East Side. In the re-envisioned East River Park, flood protection elements and landscape improvements are designed to heighten quality of life, improve park access over Robert Moses-era highway infrastructure, and amenitize public spaces while preserving existing recreational capacity.
As the first integrated resilience project in New York organized between multiple agencies, the design process has gradually become an exercise in how to organize resilience projects. ONE’s role in the project has extended from urban integration to inter-agency coordination, helping to create the first precedent and framework for planning large-scale coastal infrastructure, deconflicting municipal priorities through multiple-scenario planning while illuminating co-benefits to a wide cross-section of stakeholder interests. In the late stages of the project design and documentation, ONE has led the detailed architectural design of the flood protection system — including 17 flood gates crossing City right-of-ways, and over a mile of exposed concrete flood wall.
Status: Under Construction
Location: New York, NY, US
