Community Voices and the Future of the Seward Park Urban Renewal Area

SPURA Matters is a yearlong initiative facilitated by nonprofit community organizations that wished to renew a community conversation about the redevelopment of the long-vacant Seward Park Urban Renewal Area (SPURA) site on the Lower East Side. Over several months in late 2008 and early 2009, the initiative consulted with local stakeholders to engage them in a dialogue about community needs and potential uses for the site. After decades of controversial development proposals that never went anywhere, SPURA Matters strove to get stakeholders talking about how the site could be developed in a way that benefits the surrounding community. The ultimate goal of the initiative is to help start a community-driven process to put the site back into a broadly productive use.

 This report documents the findings from the SPURA Matters community engagement process and is intended to be used as a tool for use in advocacy efforts to redevelop the SPURA site. Manhattan Community Board 3 is currently in the process of elaborating a set of principles for redevelopment, and the organizations that are part of SPURA Matters hope that this report can help guide that process.