The Hudson River Park Trust announced to the New York Times that Clarkson University has been chosen to lead the estuarium (“a research and education center with a focus on river ecology”) long planned for Pier 26.

Clarkson, based in Potsdam, N.Y., already runs the Beacon Institute for Rivers and Estuaries, some 50 miles up the Hudson River from the park. And the university will lead a consortium that includes the New York Hall of Science and the Hudson River Sloop Clearwater to devise and run programs at the future estuarium. […] The center will occupy the end of the 840-foot pier [….] With a footprint of about 12,000 square feet, the estuarium will have instruments and sensors to collect data to monitor things like water quality and salinity from the river. While there will be some research activity, the center’s primary focus will be educational, with classrooms, a wet laboratory and exhibits. […] Construction is expected to begin on the estuarium in 2017. Plans also call for a new deck and landscaping on Pier 26. The expectation is that Clearwater, which operates educational programs aboard a replica of a cargo sloop, will eventually berth at the pier.”

No, there’s no word on the Pier 26 restaurant yet, so please don’t ask.

P.S. Here’s a graphic from  the HRP website; the page hasn’t been updated, and it’s old, but according to it, the estuarium is not at the end of the pier at all.