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P3 will leave Pier 40 this summer
P3, aka Pier Park & Playground Association, a non-profit that has run baseball camps and afterschool programs at Pier 40 for decades, will no longer have a permit for the indoor space it operates on the south side of the field. Both Greenwich Village Little League and Downtown Little League are petitioning the Hudson River Park Trust to keep the organization in place, but P3 has already been told it must vacate by July 15.
In a letter to GVLL leadership, the Trust said that while it values youth baseball and the league and all it does for local kids and for building community at Pier 40, it “had to make the extremely difficult decision to terminate the longstanding permit held by the Pier Park and Playground Association, Inc.” The letter went on: “We had no plans to make any changes to P3’s status prior to this incident and made this determination based upon significant permit violations related to unauthorized construction at Pier 40 that now must be repaired for safety. Please know that this decision was not made lightly.”
The Trust declined to elaborate on the nature of the unauthorized construction other than to say it was significant enough that the Trust could not responsibly ignore it.
P3 will be able to use the Pier 40 fields this summer and beyond for its camps and other programs, since the permitting for the fields is a separate process.
P3 had a permit from the Hudson River Park Trust to use that indoor space exclusively, but they did not pay rent or fees to the park for its use. Increasingly, GVLL and Gothams, the citywide travel baseball team, ran their operations out of the space. DLL also used the indoor space for coaching and practice, but did not have any direct arrangement with the Trust for its space.
“The P3 facility along the south side of Pier 40 has also functioned as home-base for GVLL,” the league’s president wrote to parents, noting that she will be urging the Trust to reconsider. “It is where managers go to pickup and drop-off equipment. It is where we train coaching staff on safety, hold manager meetings and organize tryouts. It is where our kids attend hitting, pitching, catching and fielding clinics after school and during off-seasons.”
“Shutting down the P3 facility would cause serious damage to our little league and the broader downtown NYC baseball and softball community,” the board of DLL said in a letter to parents. “We believe it will significantly limit the programming offered by Downtown Little League.”
There is a lot of overlap with the three baseball organizations as well as Gothams — folks serve on both boards of the non-profits, for example, and P3 and Gothams are both run by the same person — so it’s no surprise that the leagues are all trying to keep P3 in place. In other words, it is tangled.
The future of the space has not been determined, but the Trust’s president, Noreen Doyle, said in her letter to GVLL that the park will not seek a commercial use there in the future, but rather something that will serve the community and likely youth sports.
“We are committed to listening to our community about how this space can continue to serve the youth sports community that is such an integral part of both Pier 40 and Hudson River Park overall,” she wrote. “We will be working with Community Board 2, our Advisory Council, and league leadership on the best way to begin that conversation…We certainly recognize the incredible and unique value that the indoor space at Pier 40 has provided to our baseball and softball communities over the years.”
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For CLARITY, NY GOTHAMS is also a non-profit – despite what HRPT would like everyone to think.
Everyone knows it is a non-profit; you can see their filings here. However they do not hold a permit to use that space. Only P3 does.
SO many kids will be hurt by the closing of P3. The indoor training facility is integral to the baseball and softball training for so many children throughout the city – not just downtown. From my understanding, P3 is actively trying to work with and appeal to Noreen Doyle. Noreen…there are many, many, MANY children and their parents who are begging you and the board to reconsider this decision. Please do not do this.
Thanks for stepping out! – P3 acts in collaboration with GVLL and DLL to coach their kids, they have also worked in collaboration to coach Gotham’s kids. All of these are non profits. It feel important that the public understand the nature of these relationships as they parse out the needs of our community. The loss of P3 as support to multiple non profits is a travesty! Indoor batting is essential to the development of baseball and softball players!
Yes, it is important that the public understand the nature of these relationships, since the public is apparently subsidizing them.
“acts in collaboration” — Is this just nice talk for commercializing space dedicated to affordable camps? In other words, GVLL and DLL paying P3 for the unpermitted use of Pier 40 indoor space for their little leagues’ programming, available rain or shine? How many tens of thousands of dollars in fees to P3 has that collaboration amounted to over the years?
“worked in collaboration” — Is this also nice talk, for self-dealing by the operators of P3 for the unpermitted use of Pier 40 indoor space to operate their own exclusive enrollment-by-admission citywide (not just downtown Manhattan) travel baseball program? With per-player fees exceeding $5,000 per year, and an annual revenue of $700,000?
It’s important to ask tough questions about how public space is used, especially when it comes to funding and whether the benefits are shared equitably with the public. However, I think there are a few points here that need further clarification.
First, I believe the phrase “acts in collaboration” isn’t meant to mask something nefarious; it’s referring to the nature of partnerships that help keep the space active and utilized. The alternative might be underutilized spaces that serve very few people. P3 has provided access to valuable indoor space that would otherwise be difficult to maintain or fund in the absence of these partnerships.
P3 has a long history the community, and their operations are not about profiteering but about providing a much-needed service for children. They are an independent non profit offering a service.
And a variety of little leagues, travel ball programs and schools utilize their services — more than just the organizations listed in this article. And services cost money (just because you are a non-profit doesn’t mean you don’t charge fees for service).
While it’s true that some customers of P3—like the travel baseball league—do have higher fees, that’s reflective of the costs associated with running a competitive program at a high level, not an effort to enrich anyone.
Additionally, calling these activities “unpermitted” seems to miss the broader context. P3 has a valid permit that allows for this kind of use. If you’re concerned about the public subsidy and whether the community is getting a fair deal, I think it’s important to acknowledge that, without these partnerships, the alternative might be even less access for local residents or a vacant space that offers nothing to the community and only costs money to maintain.
I agree. There *are* a few points here that need further clarification.
No one disagrees that the outdoor space at Pier 40 is fully utilized by the local youth sports community. Why would the indoor space by underutilized if it were operated the same way as the outdoor space? Why couldn’t the downtown soccer clubs and youth football groups–that now have zero access to the indoor space because of how it is controlled–help utilize the indoor space to its fullest extent?
Hudson River Park Trust would be smart to rethink now how best to provide access for use by all downtown youth sports groups, including all the sports organizations who are “Pier 40 Champions.” The Trust manages the outdoor field space now by issuing permits, and it could do the same for its indoor space. The Trust “maintains” and “funds” the outdoor field space just fine by providing access to all comers for sports field use and space, without favor, and it has done so for many years.
The indoor space is valuable, yet unlike other HRPT tenants, P3 pays no rent to the Trust, to the public, to you and me. If P3 cannot fully use the space by operating only affordable baseball / softball camps and after school programs, then the HRPT should open up public access to the space. Why should HRPT allow access to the indoor space to be limited to invitation only? And for just those unpermitted entities, private schools, and travel baseball businesses who can afford to pay (and do pay P3) for “P3” services provided by P3 within a public-owned, rent-free space, like a “two drink minimum” at a private club?
(Ask yourself: What if P3 had also controlled the outdoor field space also over the last 20 years? It is not so far-fetched. According to a 2005 article in The Villager: “Although it seemed P3 might someday run the new Pier 40 ball fields, the Trust plans to operate them. ‘We at one point put forward that we were willing to do that,’ [Tobi] Bergman said. ‘But the mission of P3 has always been to increase access to sports fields, not to run them. The fields at Pier 40 were part of that mission.’ “)
Why should P3 be allowed to capture that value by acting as a middleman to rent out the indoor space or to run its adjacent businesses within the Trust’s space, the public’s space, with zero rent expense? That’s certainly one way to “increase access to sports fields,” but perhaps not the best way.
The residents of downtown Manhattan are used to fighting to maintain access to public park and recreation spaces and fending off *private* interests. I mean not just the big developers who would like to have plowed Pier 40 under. I mean the petty, hard-to-discern schemes, including the private instructors who hover over public tennis court signups in HRP just south of Pier 40 or in Tribeca, a public dog run that was illegally gated by private interests for years, or the building owners who close off POPS (privately owned public spaces, for which developers get zoning benefits in exchange for providing park space for the public).
Can you identify active or past board members who serve on both the Gotham and P3 non-profit boards? I don’t believe there are any and if there were, there haven’t been any for a long period of time. Additionally, would it be beneficial for the public to know that the publisher of the Tribeca Citizen has been a longstanding board member of the Hudson River Park Trust? Thank you for the consideration.
Yes, that is in my bio! I think most of my longtime readers know…
https://tribecacitizen.com/what-is-tribeca-citizen/
IRS Form 990 filings show that P3 and Downtown Little League have a common board member. IRS Form 990 filings show that the Gothams board has shrunk to 3 members as of 2022, which is not really much of a board. The person who heads P3 is described as Gothams’ “Head Coach and as the Director of Baseball Operations” on gothams.org website and named as “Owner” on the PRD Baseball Affiliates website.
Additionally, would it be beneficial for the public to know that there is a President Emeritus of Greenwich Village Little League and current member of the Board of Advisors of GVLL who is also named Dan Miller? The Villager (https://www.amny.com/news/new-prez-is-ushered-in/) memorably covered the start of his term in 2010.
“In another smooth transition, Dan Miller, center, took over as president of the Greenwich Village Little League last month […] The ‘passing of the bat’ occurred at Pier 40, on W. Houston St., as the league also presented awards for the many volunteers who make G.V.L.L. run. Things got off to a rocky start as park security told the parents they couldn’t drink a few beers on the loading dock ringing the pier’s courtyard field. The G.V.L.L.’ers picked up their sandwiches and moved everything inside to the P3 space — just reinforcing their spirit of ‘teamwork,’ Miller said.”
I know “Dan Miller” is a more common name than James Bogardus. So this is probably just a coincidence.