Whatever happened to The New York Wheel, which just started construction on Staten Island five years ago? It was supposed to have a concert venue, beer garden, playground and be the tallest Ferris in the U.S.. At 630 feet and 60 stories tall – 80 feet taller than the one in Las Vegas and almost 200 feet taller than the London Eye .
The 40-minute ride was to have drop-dead views of the NYC skyline, the Statue of Liberty and each glass pod will hold 40 visitors, operating until midnight. The downside? It’s in Staten Island. That and it’s not being being built.
According to New Repulic,
…the Staten Island Advance wrote that $400 million of the reported $580 million in funding had already been spent—a whopping $250 million had gone into the parking garage alone; $80 million to recently terminated contractor Mammoet; $30 million to keep the site running.
At this point, The Wheel would need some three million visitors a year, according to an estimate by Hunden Strategic Partners, just to break even. “Even if The Wheel were built, what was the exit strategy to pay off the investors?” asked Friedland, the NYU professor. “Can the cost of a ride really sufficiently cover the debt service?”
The Staten Island Advance also reported that some $300 million more would be needed to complete the project. In September, the city rejected a last-ditch request by the developers that tax-free bonds be issued to make up the difference in funding. Since the project was privately funded, it was hard to know how much money The Wheel had or needed. There were rumors that the Highbridge loan had fallen through. “So far, what we’ve seen in this case, unfortunately, is a project that is not going to be economically viable,” said Mayor Bill de Blasio. By fall 2018, the cost of completion had reportedly ballooned to over $1 billion.
With the project on indefinite delay and looking increasingly unlikely. In January 2018, it was terminated. Nine months later, the project was pronounced dead.
In the end, Staten Island came away with a parking garage.
“The developers of The New York Wheel are proud to have delivered a state-of-the art, modern 325,000 square-foot garage structure,” spokeswoman Cristyne Nicholas said.
Others aren’t so pleased. “It’s unfortunate that we’re stuck with the ugliest part: a parking garage that blocks the view from Richmond Terrace,” David Goldfarb, a former president of the St. George Civic Association, told The New York Times.
