By Julie Shapiro
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
LOWER MANHATTAN — Millions of dollars meant to help lower Manhattan recover from 9/11 are still sitting in a bank account, unspent.
Julie Menin, chairwoman of Community Board 1, is demanding the city and the Lower Manhattan Development Corp. release the money.
“The funds must be disseminated immediately,” said Menin, who is also an LMDC board member. “We’ve still got so many needs in this community.”
The LMDC received $2 billion in federal money after 9/11. Of that, $600 million still has not been spent, said LMDC President David Emil. He presented the agency’s full financial picture for the first time at a public meeting Monday night.
Much of the LMDC’s unspent money is committed to long-term projects, like the East River Waterfront, which will eventually need the funds, Emil said.
But the LMDC has identified other pockets of money that are not slated for any specific purpose, or are unlikely to ever be spent.
For example, the Drawing Center in SoHo was granted $10 million several years ago to find a new location downtown. But the art museum never made the move, and about $8 million of the original grant remains.
Emil hopes to combine that $8 million with another $11 million in leftover cultural money, and release those funds back to the community. The LMDC will do a request for proposals, soliciting ideas for the $19 million from nonprofit groups downtown.
“It would be terrific if the LMDC could release the funds,” said Catherine Porter, finance director at Dixon Place, an experimental theater on Chrystie Street.
Dixon Place received $500,000 from the LMDC several years ago, in an earlier round of grants, to build its new theater.
Porter said local arts nonprofits need help now more than ever, as donors close their wallets and other government grants evaporate.
Emil did not say when the LMDC would release the RFP, but it is unlikely to happen before the board’s next meeting June 24.
In addition to the $19 million the LMDC hopes to release, other pots of money are also sitting unused, waiting for the city or another government agency to act.
The city has $12 million in LMDC money set aside for affordable housing, $4 million for small businesses and $3 million for education. None of that money has been committed to a specific project, Emil said.
Menin said the affordable housing money could be used immediately to build hundreds of much-needed units downtown. And lower Manhattan schools desperately need the money to fight budget cuts, she said.
The city is also sitting on $30 million for the unpopular Chatham Square street realignment. The Chinatown community opposes the project, and the city has delayed it indefinitely.
A spokesman for the mayor did not comment Wednesday.
