Staten Island Gets Lift With Talk of a Mall and a Ferris Wheel

By VIVIAN YEE

They come by the thousands, crowding onto the Staten Island Ferry with their cameras, eager for the ferry's perfect views of New York Harbor, where the Statue of Liberty and Lower Manhattan gleam. But once on Staten Island, few make it off the boat, where a deck attached to the terminal offers a sweeping view of a parking lot caked with goose droppings, the small ballpark of the minor-league Staten Island Yankees and beyond, another parking lot.

All summer, however, the borough has been buzzing with reports that, if true, could finally propel Staten Island into the big leagues: the city is in talks with developers to build a half-million-square-foot outlet mall on one of the parking lots and a 600-foot-high observation wheel similar to the London Eye on the other.

That would give Staten Island, New York's most overlooked borough, an improbable distinction: the world's tallest Ferris wheel. ( Currently the tallest, at 541 feet, is in Singapore, though the London Eye, which is 443-feet tall, is probably the most famous.)

“We're all excited about the Ferris wheel,” said Pat Wilks, the spokeswoman for the Staten Island borough president, James. P. Molinaro, when a reporter asked her about its possibility.

Neither Mr. Molinaro nor the city's Economic Development Corporation would confirm that the observation wheel and outlet mall projects had pulled ahead of other proposals for the site, which New York City has been trying to develop for several years.

Along the pleasant greenway that runs between the water and the parking lots, reactions to Staten Island's potential upgrade to Home of the World's Tallest Ferris Wheel ranged from the dubious to the delighted.

“We've got to start bringing things out here, put Staten Island on the map,” said Tyrone Williams, 45, who was enjoying the breeze off the water on Wednesday. His friends who liv e elsewhere in the city agree to go to Staten Island only because he lives near the ferry terminal, he said. “It's the forgotten borough.”

David Reading, 33, a fire alarm installation technician who has assignments in the borough a few times a month, said that growing up in New Jersey, “I always knew Staten Island was the dump.” Told that the world's largest Ferris wheel might be coming, he laughed, and then conceded it might be a good idea.

Staten Island, it seems, is always having to justify its existence. A sign by the waterfront explains that it became a borough of New York City “despite geographically being much closer to New Jersey.”

With its expansive views of Lower Manhattan and the harbor, the waterfront, known as the North Shore Greenway, is dotted with patches of flowers and birch trees. Residents and workers in the nearby neighborhood of St. George come to spend their lunch breaks lying on the wooden benches. But few tourists venture beyond the terminal deck.

“Tourists, we see them, but there's nothing for them,” said Nicole Michelson, 36, who lives on the southern shore of the island and works in St. George. Without restaurants or attractions beyond the Sept. 11 memorial on the greenway and a small historical museum in St. George, Ms. Michelson said, there is no reason for them to stay.

A friend, Michelle Butindari, 35, said: “We see them walk in. Two seconds later they're walking out.”

Besides, Ms. Michelson said, she wouldn't mind a few store outlets herself. “I might go broke at lunchtime,” she said.

An outlet mall - there is no such thing in New York City, though there is a proposal for one in the Bronx - might even attract Manhattan and Brooklyn dwellers to Staten Island, albeit perhaps only a few yards beyond the terminal. But State Senator Diane J. Savino, a Democrat from Staten Island, disputed reports that the city was in serious talks with Plaza Capital Gr oup Management, a developer, about a Ferris wheel, and BFC Partners, which proposed the mall, insisting that the city was only at the beginning of the process.

“The Economic Development Corporation seems to have gotten a response from two to three people who presented ideas for what would be a viable development there, including but not limited to a retail outlet mall,” Ms. Savino said. “That's about as far as we've gotten.”

Officials at BFC Partners and Plaza Capital did not return messages seeking comment.

Last August, the city put out a request for ideas to develop the two parking lots, which total more than 14 acres, a spokesman for the Economic Development Corporation said. Mr. Molinaro, the borough president, said he expected the city to announce a deal on the sites by the end of September.

The sooner, the better, say Staten Islanders who work and live nearby.

At the United Livery Cars stand near the parking lot that is being disc ussed for the outlet mall, Arnold O'Brien, 42, who has worked at the stand for more than two years, said he had already seen surveyors take measurements for a multilevel parking garage. He said tourists fresh off the ferry often stop to ask him what else they could see on Staten Island. He tells them not to waste their time.

“If you really want to see something, go back to Manhattan,” Mr. O'Brien said he tells them.

The projects could help the area “get big, like Downtown Brooklyn,” he said. “But it's got a lot of changing to do.”