One Proposal Has the U.N. on the Water
BY MEGHAN CLYNE - Staff Reporter of the Sun
June 9, 2005

With Albany resisting U.N. plans to build swing space on a neighboring city park during a $1.2 billion renovation of its headquarters, the Fifth Committee, a budgetary organ of the General Assembly, urged Secretary-General Kofi Annan yesterday to consider a park on U.N. premises as an alternative site. Meanwhile, one former U.N. management official recommended the organization literally go sailing during the five-year refurbishment.
A large multidecked cruise ship or two, with space enough for U.N. offices - and for the 191-nation General Assembly - could be docked in the East River, right in front of the current U.N. campus. Some employees could move there until work on the headquarters is complete, and major U.N. bodies could meet on board, a former U.N. deputy director for management advisory services, Joseph Klee, said.
Moving to cruise ships might solve some of the worries of many U.N. employees and diplomats who currently reside in Manhattan and fear the renovation could take them to an outer borough, out of town, or to another country. And if America tires of serving as host to the international body, the United Nations could simply sail away to friendlier shores.
Modern cruise ships, Mr. Klee told The New York Sun's Benny Avni, are built to carry more than 2,000 passengers and more than 1,000 cabins, and they have all these common spaces that could fit all the conference rooms the U.N. needs, including the General Assembly.
Mr. Klee, who has been following the twists and turns in the U.N. Capital Master Plan, brought up the cruise ship idea with former colleagues. There is quite a lot of interest in this idea, he said.
If the United Nations decides to remain on land, however, the Fifth Committee, in a resolution adopted yesterday, raised the possibility of temporary housing on its own property.
One of several swing-space options considered before the decision to build the 35-story, 900,000-square-foot office tower at the city's Robert Moses playground at Turtle Bay was using the North Lawn, a park that has been closed since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.
A representative of the Swiss mission, Anja Zobrist Rentenaar, said the North Lawn held appeal as a backup.
Because the Moses building was not projected to reach a financial breakeven point, even as consolidation space, until 2043, Ms. Zobrist Rentenaar said it would be much more practical to put the tower on U.N. land.
The United Nations, whose campus is considered international territory beyond the jurisdiction of American authorities, would also save itself the trouble of securing city and state approval. That means a North Lawn swing space could be built in time to avoid the costly rental of commercial space during the renovation, proponents said.
Another benefit of construction on the North Lawn would accrue to the surrounding community. The space available for the footprint of the Moses building is limited, because the structure would share the playground with a ventilation tower for the Queens-Midtown Tunnel. The North Lawn is considerably more spacious, Ms. Zobrist said, meaning the footprint of a tower there could be wider and a structure there could accommodate 900,000 square feet of office space in fewer floors. Members of the local community thus could retain their park and lose less in terms of light and East River views.
Even if it is too late, too expensive, or too objectionable to construct a permanent swing space or consolidation building on the North Lawn, the park could still house a prefabricated building that could serve as conference space during the renovations, a representative of New Zealand, Felicity Buchanan, said.
In the meantime, design work continues on renovation of the U.N. headquarters, which, according to the officer in charge of the Capital Master Plan, John Clarkson, progresses independent of the fate of the swing space.
Even so, some member states have expressed frustration at the lack of progress on the design work, saying there is insufficient transparency and meager information on what has been accomplished thus far and how the money already allotted to the work has been used.
According to U.N. officials, around $25 million has already been spent on design and planning, which began in 2001, not including the design work for the new Moses building. The assistant secretary-general for central support services, Andrew Toh, said that the renovation will not change the exterior of the iconic U.N. buildings and that most of the design and construction is dedicated to engineering work that will replace aging pipes, wires, and other infrastructure.
In all, the United Nations plans to spend $51 million on design development and construction documents, and officials requested from the Fifth Committee that it provide $26 million for remaining design work through the end of 2006, when Mr. Clarkson said it should be complete. The committee, however, decided yesterday to provide only $17.8 million now, the amount requested for the rest of this calendar year. While U.N. officials depicted the withholding of the rest until next year as a routine procurement procedure, representatives of some member states said their reluctance to give the full amount requested by Mr. Annan was related to concerns about transparency and efficiency in the design process. For example, U.N. officials have yet to provide specific information about what the $26 million spent to date has obtained in terms of finished designs.
During discussion of the allotment in the Fifth Committee, representatives of many member states bewailed that lack of specific information.
A representative from Argentina's U.N. mission, Alejandro Torres Lepori, said this week that some delegates were alarmed also by the changing requests made by the secretary-general in terms of financing for the design work.
We were concerned about the secretariat giving us different figures last year, and even in March, regarding the amount of appropriations needed to continue with the design phase of the Capital Master Plan. There was a difference of several million dollars, so we were concerned about that, Mr. Torres said.
How expenditures on the Capital Master Plan are to be financed is one of the most contentious elements of the debate, with several member states, including those of the European Union, expressing indignation that America, as the host country, is not providing an interest-free loan for the purposes of the U.N. renovation, as they said countries that are host to other U.N. facilities do.
Many member states are balking at accepting America's offer, which expires September 30, of a loan at 5.54% interest. The Fifth Committee postponed a decision on the loan yesterday, pledging, however, to resolve the matter this month.
Even as the United Nations looks for alternatives to the Moses swing space, some in the city, including leaders of organized labor, hope the plan can be revived and are urging the state Legislature to yield before the end of its session on June 23. As the Sun reported yesterday, many of the players in the Jets' West Side stadium battle are now eyeing the U.N. project, and one, the Reverend Alford Sharpton, said he was reviewing the U.N. plans. He called on the world body to adopt for its construction the Jets' guarantee of using contracting businesses owned by members of minority groups and by women.