Plant shop owner Dimitri Gatanas says MTA's Park Avenue Viaduct repair pushing business to brink
NEW YORK -- Metro-North's Park Avenue Viaduct in Upper Manhattan continues to show signs of aging and distress.
The MTA says it's replacing the entire stretch over the next few years, but it's a major inconvenience to a well known business sitting underneath the tracks in East Harlem.
CBS2's Elijah Westbrook met business owner Dimitri Gatanas while covering the story back in early January, weeks after the MTA announced it was planning to do work on the more than century old viaduct.
The work sounds good on paper, but Gatanas says his business isn't reaping the benefits of the two-and-a-half year long project.
"The MTA has us moving in two different stages -- both out, and in," Gatanas told Westbrook. "So what is happening is we're effectively moving four times."
He's been in contact with CBS2 over the last few months giving updates. His plant shop, called the Urban Garden Center, sits on two plots of land that have been joined together between 116th and 117th streets.
He's being forced to move them both while the MTA works on the viaduct. This means his business will have to split until the work is done in 2026.
One part will move just a few blocks south on Park Avenue, which the MTA has agreed to pay for and build, while the other portion relocates elsewhere. Gatanas showed Westbrook multiple letters he received from the transit agency, including a 30-day vacate notice.
"They told me that would be ready mid-summer. Now, I'm being told it won't be ready until maybe in September. Now, I have to move ASAP on one lot," he said. "Our calculations show that we're spending well over $100,000 a year extra in operating expenses because of this whole arrangement."
The MTA says the project is much needed. At one point, cracks in the beams of the structure varied more than half a foot -- a safety concern close to a quarter of a million weekday riders commute through, according to the agency.
The project is slated to replace the entire stretch from 115th to 132nd streets, but phase one is expected to focus up to 123rd Street.
"The MTA is not only building a new greenhouse on the new Urban Garden Center site and meeting requirements... We are exceeding it with additional funds to help impacted businesses as part of our ongoing commitment to being a good neighbor," the transit agency said in a statement.
"It's completely unfair and it should not happen this way. All of this stuff should've been negotiated in advance, we would've been cooperative," said Gatanas.
The plant shop owner believes he's in the pits of potentially going out of business, plus grappling with the loss of more than 80 years of memories he says can't migrate with the move. But the MTA says the $382 million project is worth securing the safety of the thousands of passengers who pass by.
