On December 26, 2024, ExxonMobil sold its last waterfront property on Newtown Creek: the 10-acre parcel at 400 Kingsland Avenue in Greenpoint. The property had been owned and operated by Standard Oil and its predecessor companies since the 1870s. The extensive oil refining and storage operations along the Creek helped ExxonMobil build a multinational fossil fuel empire and left a local legacy of environmental and human health harm that remains today. This includes deadly fires, the country’s largest underground oil spill, and extensive Superfund contamination of Newtown Creek. Mobil closed their last local refinery in the 1960s, and the site’s main purpose in recent decades has been dedicated to the recovery and treatment of their Oil Spill. In 2024, ExxonMobil applied for a permit modification from NY State, enabling them to relocate groundwater remediation operations off-site to another property in Greenpoint, and thus able to relinquish 400 Kingsland Ave.
NCA has advocated for beneficial redevelopment of this site for many years, including a strategic site in our Brownfield Opportunity Area Report (2012). In short, we urge responsible development that:
+ Uses the waterfront for waterborne transportation, developing public waterfront access, and/or creating shoreline habitat;
+ Implements green infrastructure, habitat restoration, and/or tree canopy;
+ Prioritizes operations that are climate positive with minimal impacts on local air quality;
+ Creates high-quality, safe, and well-paying jobs.
We worked with Pratt Institute graduate student Aishwarya Venkatesh (@aishwaryaaav) last summer to develop a series of renderings: potential redevelopment scenarios that highlight some of the above priorities. Here we present those visions, along with two key considerations for the value the site can also play in regard to the Superfund process.
We look forward to continued dialog with the new property owners, Prologis, a global leader in logistics real estate who own multiple sites along Newtown Creek. There is significant opportunity to transform this historically burdened site into a positive for our neighborhood, our city, and our climate.
See instagram post here, and .pdf below.