Mega-Gentrification on Staten Island (?!)

Has Staten Island’s moment finally come?

Un-hip low-density Staten Island has long been the butt of New York’s jokes, and while other boroughs have been enjoying a development boom for the last decade, Staten Island has been left by the wayside.

But today, The New York Times reports that the New Jersey developer Ironstate will invest $150 million to develop 900-units of rental housing and 30,000 sq. ft. of retail space on seven acres of vacant land along the Staten Island waterfront.

EDC President Seth W. Pinsky was quoted explaining that the depleted numbers of young people living in Staten Island (which by current projections will have the highest percentage of seniors of any borough by 2030) has been a source of concern to the city. The hope is that the new development will retain and attract men and women in their 20s and 30s who might otherwise be inclined to move, especially to New Jersey.

Looping Staten Island into the development frenzy that has swept other areas of the city is not a bad thing on principle, but the issue of concern is whether this scale of development is sustainable on Staten Island, where there is basically no market demand for new development.

Staten Island does not cultivate trendiness. Young people are not drawn to it’s dilapidated waterfront in the same way they are drawn to similar areas in Brooklyn and Queens because there is no proximity to anything that has already been deemed cool.

How can Staten Island overcome isolation and reputation to become a place of economic and cultural value?