Tottenville's Conference House Park Pavilion has a $3.7 million dollar renovations in the works, which has had a late delay in starting. The project should be moving forward in construction after the Parks Department finally issued invitations to construction bids.
Located at the end of Hylan Boulevard, the project is to rebuild an existing pavilion at the waterfront. The pavilion has been closed several times and was due to begin construction for a couple of years now.
The Conference House original pavilion was built in 1935. Over the years, the pavilion fell into disrepair and needed replacement. The city rebuilt the pavilion as part of a $14 million park revamp in 2002. By 2011, it was closed to the public after weather damage to the roof and deck. The area appeared unsafe so the city closed it down. The pavilion has been waiting for repair since then.
In 2015, funding for the project was made available and was secured by Borough President James Oddo, Councilman Vincent Ignizio, and former Mayor of New York City, Michael Bloomberg. However, the project stalled due to inter-agency conflict. The delays occurred due to miscommunication between the Department of Transportation and the Department of Environmental Conservation. Due to these issues, it took close to two years to complete construction plans, creating design delays and postpones.
Construction was supposed to begin again in 2016, but that was delayed for another time. Conference House Park is not only the site for the historic peace conference in 1776, it was also used as a Lenape Indian burial ground over thousands of years before Europeans came to America and Staten Island.
When the construction is finally completed, the new pavilion will consist of a 4,200-square foot space that is designed by Sage and Coombe. The modern design in this location will be able to host weddings, concerts, and other public events.
The designs were expected to be finished in 2015 with construction starting in 2016. Keeping up with the consist delays, the design process was not completed until August of 2016. With hopes that there will be no more delays, the Parks Department expects that construction should begin later this year.
