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Mitchell Park and Marina

Greenport, N.Y.
SHoP Architects

Project Diary: It took three phases and 12 years, but SHoP shepherded Mitchell Park into the revitalization of a once-despondent town


Photo © Seong Kwon
   

By James S. Russell, AIA

White-clapboard saltboxes, temple-fronted Greek Revivals, and bracketed, frilled, and bay-windowed Victorians have made Greenport, a tiny, 168-year-old seaport at the easternmost reach of New York’s Long Island, an idiosyncratic barometer of architectural style. But the years after World War II, when shipbuilding died, were not kind to the 1-square-mile town of just 2,100 people. By the mid 1990s, its scandal-prone police department caught the notice of London’s Daily Mirror: “Vice Cop Had Sex on Chief’s Desk,” a headline screamed. The hulk of a burned restaurant was “a cancer” growing in the village’s core, according to Mayor David E. Kapell.

It is hard to find a more clear-cut case of a work of civic architecture catalyzing urban regeneration than Mitchell Park. Yes, it removed a blighting presence at the village’s core, but its design—assertive and magnetic, yet sensitive to Greenport’s history and personality—could not have happened without leadership and teamwork that overcame 12 years’ worth of obstacles.

Mayor Kapell made a name by firing the “world’s worst police force,” but he knew that renovating downtown’s derelict 5 acres was a critical next step. After several commercial schemes foundered, Kapell was able to obtain much of the site from an owner in receivership. He met New York City architect Wendy Evans Joseph, and she organized a competition for the park Kapell envisioned. The jury chose a scheme by Philadelphia landscape architect James Corner (now a partner in the firm Field Operations), which capitalized on the town’s shipbuilding past by proposing a kind of ramped drydock for both ship and carousel. Townspeople were skeptical of Corner’s austerely drawn boards, and Kapell found he could not build support for the plan. The third-prize winner, by Manhattan-based Sharples design—at that time a young firm comprising William, Christopher, and Coren Sharples—offered a more readily grasped vision by uniting the program elements with a harborwalk—an armature of boardwalk, shelters, and benches that stretched along the water from a car-ferry terminal and train station at one end of downtown to a pier lined with stores and restaurants at the other.

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the People

Owner
The Village of Greenport

Architect
SHoP Architects PC
11 Park Place Penthouse
New York, NY 10007
212-889-9005
212-889-3686
www.shoparc.com

Partners:
William Sharples, Coren Sharples, Gregg Pasquarelli, Kimberly Holden

Project Manager:
Mark Ours

Project Team:
Mark Ours, Reese Campbell, Keith Kaseman, Shigeru Kuwahara
Jason Anderson, Leo Chang

Engineer(s)
Buro Happold www.burohappold.com

Consultant(s)
Landscape:
Quennell Rothschild + Partners www.qrpartners.com

Civil, Mechanical & Environmental:
H2M Group www.h2m.com

Marina:
– Hastings Design Group / BJLA Architecture and Planning (Pier and Floating Marina Design)
– Lizardos Engineering (Electrical Engineer Marina) www.leapc.com
– Vachris Engineering (Structural Engineer Bulkhead / Marina) www.vachris.com

Public Agencies:
– The Village of Greenport
– State of New York, Department of State
– New York State Department of Parks and Recreation
– New York State Department of Transportation
– Empire State Development Corporation
– Department of Environmental Conservation (Environmental Facilities Corporation)
– Army Corps of Engineers
– Suffolk County (Office of Economic Development)
– Southold Town

General contractor
(Two Phase – Multiple Prime Contractors)

PHASE ONE:
– Carriage Hill Associates (General Contractor)
- Johnson Electric (Electrical Contractor)
– LD Flecken, Inc. (Steel Fabricator)
– O’Donnell Construction (Carpentry)
– Bergen Point dock Builders (Harborwalk)
– Tyree Brothers (Soil Remediation Contractor)

PHASE TWO:
– LoDuca Associates (General contractor)
– Johnson Electric (Electrical Contractor)
www.johnsonelectric.com
– WHM Heating and Plumbing (Mechanical Contractor) 6 Enterprise Drive, Suite 8 East Setauket, NY 11733 631-473-3568 631-473-3762
– Burley Ice Systems (Ice Rink Contractor) www.burleys.com
– Chesterfield Associates (Marina Contractor)
– Manning Plumbing and Heating (Marina Plumbing)
– Ara Plumbing Corporation (Floating Marina Plumbing) 2182 Jackson Avenue, Seaford, NY 11783

Photographer(s)
Seong Kwon

CAD system, project management, or other software used
VectorWorks www.nemetschek.com; AutoCAD www.autodesk.com; Rhino www.rhino3d.com; SolidWorks www.solidworks.com

the Products

Structural system
– Steel and engineered lumber framing; Maloya Laser (laser cutting for camera obscura) www.maloyalaser.com
– Brakewell Steel (steel fabrications for camera obscura) www.brakewell.com

Exterior cladding
Wood:
IPE + Western Red Cedar

Roofing
Elastomeric:
EPDM by Firestone www.firestonebpco.com

Metal:
VM Zinc www.vmzinc.com

Windows
Wood:
Cedar with aluminum, custom by Loduca Associates www.loducagc.com

Interior finishes
Cabinetwork and custom woodwork:
Finnish birch

Paints and stains:
Cabot Stains www.cabotstain.com

Floor and wall tile:
Slate provided by Pet-Mal Inc. (camera obscura)

Resilient flooring:
Wood floor: FSC (Forest Stewardship Counsel) certified IPE hardwood www.fscus.org

Lighting
Interior ambient lighting:
– Bartco www.bartcolighting.com
– Bega www.bega-us.com
– safe-t-lite www.safe-t-lite.com

Exterior:
– Musco (sports lighting) www.musco.com
– Louis Poulsen www.louispoulsen.com

Plumbing
Stainless Steel Toilet partitions provided by Chase Enterprises Inc. Stainless Steel Toilets by Acorn Engineering Co. www.acorneng.com

Other
Ice Rink refrigeration and equipment:
Burley’s Arena Ice Systems www.burleys.com

Stabilized Gravel:
Stabilized Solutions (pathways)

Mist atomizer system:
Micro-Cool www.microcool.com
 
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