The Battery Park City Authority is looking for new ways to generate cash—including bringing vendors into the parks and licensing advertising “across the 92 acres.” With development of Battery Park City now complete, the Authority is grappling with ways to keep producing income for the city.

“There will be no more one shots,” Battery Park City Authority President Gayle Horwitz told Community Board 1’s BPC Committee on Tuesday. “All of those real estate developments that went on where people paid a lump sum to develop—those opportunities will no longer be with us.”

Horwitz appeared before the committee, along with more than half a dozen staffers and contractors, to discuss the future of the Authority, two months after she terminated nearly half the Authority’s staff.

Despite some reports to the contrary, Horwitz said that she did not terminate the entire construction department. And projects like the reconstruction of Pier A and the completion of a recreational center run by Asphalt Green will not be affected by staff changes, she added.

“Those contracts were managed by staff here at the Authority. That will not change,” Horwitz said. “We will just have fewer staff here to do that, because we have fewer expensive projects than we had in the past.

The Authority remains responsible for completing several costly projects. Although the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation has allotted $20 million for the construction of a bridge at Thames Street, the construction is estimated at about $27 million, Horwitz said. In addition, the cost of renovating and restoring Pier A is expected to cost about $36 million—$6 million more than the city’s Economic Development Corporation has agreed to pay. The Authority will have to make up the difference.

The Authority also needs to repair the Irish Hunger Memorial, which is leaking.

With development in Battery Park City on the cusp of completion, the city still expects the Authority to run Battery Park City like a business and continue to receive its excess revenues.  

“Battery Park City was one of the first city developments that was put in place to make a profit,” committee member Tom Goodkind said. “...It’s a tough nut to crack.”

Since coming on board as president of the BPCA in October 2010, Horwitz said she has been working to improve the Authority’s balance sheet. She said she has reduced the Agency’s spending by 12 percent, renegotiated rents for the Museum of Jewish Heritage and Gigino Trattoria in Wagner Park, and made sure that the Authority got a share of the rental income from concessions outside of the World Financial Center. (Cost savings from the recent layoff of 19 employees went unmentioned by Horwitz.)

Added income could also come from a change in rules that would allow vendors in the parks and opportunities for advertisers.

“I may be asking for the impossible, but can you comfort us that we are not going to have ads for doctors on the fence of the ball fields?” asked board member Jeff Mihok.

Horwitz, who said the idea for accepting advertising came from BPCA board members, did not elaborate on where the ads might posted or what they would look like. But she did say that they will not go up at the ball fields and would stay within the development’s design guidelines.

Horwitz said she believes advertising could be introduced and still avoid excessive commercialism. “I don’t think anybody wants to disrupt the delicate balance that has been achieved in this neighborhood,” she said.