Managing New York City’s Aging Waterfront Infrastructure

In 1991, the New York City Department of Ports and Trade was dissolved and the newly formed New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC) assumed responsibility for many of the former’s functions. In addition, the jurisdiction for the City-owned waterfront properties was transferred by City Charter to the Department of Small Business Services (SBS) and many other agencies, decentralizing the management of the City’s waterfront infrastructure. Under contract to SBS, NYCEDC is tasked with managing this extensive portfolio. NYCEDC has actively managed their waterfront portfolio by developing a custom waterfront inspection manual as well as creating a comprehensive GIS-based map for the over 520 miles of coastline in the five boroughs to develop the inventory of structures. In addition to these important steps, NYCEDC developed a web-based marine planning application called the Waterfront Facilities Maintenance Management System (WFMMS) to manage the maintenance protocols for over 100 City-owned facilities throughout New York Harbor. While the WFMMS has many functions, it is essentially an asset management system assisting NYC to monitor and maintainof waterfront facilities, with the objective of providing the best possible service to the City. This paper discusses the history of the WFMMS, the current management program and protocols, waterfront data model (intimately tied to the GIS-based map), and the technology utilized to organize the extensive data. The paper highlights lessons learned in the application development, as the WFMMS is still being updated with additional modules to provide capabilities such as inter-agency use and consultant access for data entry.