South Beach community center on hold

South Beach community center on hold

Tuesday, June 30, 2009

By KAREN O'SHEA

STATEN ISLAND ADVANCE

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- A planned South Beach community center that seemed to divide the neighborhood more than unite it is in limbo, as Russian civic leaders have pulled out of a $2.1 million contract to purchase the shuttered arcade on Sand Lane for the project.

The Staten Island Community Center, a non-profit organization headed by Russian community leader Arkadiy Fridman, had been tapped by Assemblywoman Janele Hyer-Spencer (D-East Shore/Brooklyn) to build and manage the planned $4 million community center Ms. Hyer-Spencer has said is intended for all the people of her Staten Island district, not only Russian residents.

The problem was that some key constituents said they had no idea about the plan and could get few details of its scope once they learned of SICC's intention to use public money to buy the former Beachland Amusement and build there.

The information blackout seemed to pit South Beach old-timers against newer residents. At an April meeting of the South Beach Civic Association, a woman complained that the center was "just going to be another damn Russian thing."

Now the controversial plan appears to be on hold.

Fridman says he hopes to build a relationship with the community before moving forward with plans for the center. He also said the terms of the purchase had proved too onerous.

Fridman said his organization will continue to scout a site for the community center and plans to meet this summer with the South Beach Civic Association.

"We are trying to do everything so people realize who we are," he said. "We want to build a foundation within the community."

Joe McCallister, president of the South Beach Civic Association, said all his civic association wants is details about the community center and its operator.

"We were ill-informed," he said. "We want something to be built there but we need to know what it's going to be. Will it be for the community? Is it something that will fit in the community?"

McAllister said Ms. Hyer-Spencer could offer no details on how many people would use the center or how many cars would park there, and she brought no representatives of the SICC to the April civic association meeting.

McAllister said the proposed center was also expected to accommodate a universal pre-K program -- something he said could hurt a nearby Catholic school that had applied to run the same program.

Fridman is part-owner of a building in Dongan Hills that currently houses the SICC and its community programs. The organization shares cramped space with a for-profit day care center with a universal pre-K program that is run by his wife.

But the purchase of the Sand Lane property for a larger community center was also threatened by a pending foreclosure of the site, a lengthy approval process for the project and general chaos in Albany, where a battle over leadership has shut down state overnment.

A spokesman for the state Dormitory Authority, which oversees such a project, said the $4 million grant and community center proposal is still under agency review and needs final approval from the Legislature.

"Yes, there are deep, deep technical difficulties and because of those technical difficulties, the project is on hold," Ms. Hyer-Spencer said. "But there is still a deep desire to have a community center in the South Beach area."

She said she has tried her best to answer questions about a project that's still in the planning stages.

"While we have a [money] allocation, we do not have a project approved yet. We have a concept on paper," she noted.

The $4 million allocated to build such a center remains in the budget, added Ms. Hyer-Spencer, but SICC's contract to buy the old arcade has expired. The owners asked SICC to pay a monthly fee to extend the contract -- something the organization could not do, said Fridman.

Owners Edouard (Ed) Gitlin, Gavriel Mosheyev and Boris Yadgarov defaulted on a $1.4 million mortgage held by the family that once owned and operated the Sand Lane arcade. A source said yesterday that the loan was reinstated and the foreclosure is no longer in effect.