New York City officials are moving ahead with a plan to convert a defunct newsstand outside City Hall into a hub for delivery workers — despite protests from the local community board.
During a meeting on Tuesday, the Landmark Preservation Committee will vote on the fate of the project, which aims to rebuild the kiosk with a modern, angled roof and fit it out with space to charge 48 electric bicycle batteries at the same time.
Delivery workers with e-bikes could access the space 24 hours a day through an app. The charging stations would be run by the company Oonee, which runs bike parking storage lockers in public spaces across the city.
If the Landmark Preservation Commission approves the design and doesn’t request any changes, officials said the kiosk could be built in five months and be operating by the late fall.
The meeting comes less than a month after Manhattan Community Board 1 made a non-binding vote against the project, with some members arguing the design doesn’t fit with the historic look of the area.
The newsstand, located on Broadway, is in a landmarked area. It has an ornate, old-timey roof and columns. But the structure itself only dates back to the 1980s, according to the Landmark Preservation Commission.
“We are committed to working with communities throughout the entire development process so that we can build this first-of-its-kind station,” Ligia Guallpa, executive director of the Worker’s Justice Project, wrote in a statement. “Infrastructure development of this kind is a collective effort that requires feedback from everyone involved, and we look forward to strategically and thoughtfully working together to prioritize and meet the needs of the community.”
A rise in fatal fires sparked by lithium ion batteries used in many e-bikes has prompted calls to give the city’s tens of thousands of delivery workers safe places to recharge the batteries they rely on to power their bikes.
U.S. Sen. Chuck Schumer in 2022 pledged a $1 million grant to help pay for the conversion of the City Hall newsstand, saying it would aim to address the problem.
The company Fantastica would build the kiosk and has released renderings that show a retrofitted 300-square-foot space that change the newsstand — which has been abandoned since the COVID-19 pandemic — into a welcoming space for delivery workers.
J. Manuel Mancilla, who founded the company, said the idea of a “mobility hub” isn’t unique to New York.
“Cities across the country are looking to incorporate these types of service amenities into their public transportation systems as a response to the micro-mobility revolution,” Mancilla wrote in an email.