Snack Bar Planned for Downtown Brooklyn's Cadman Park Plaza

DOWNTOWN BROOKLYN — City officials plan to turn the small, stone NYC Department of Parks and Recreation building at the southwest end of Cadman Plaza Park, pictured above, into a snack bar.

The department's chief of staff, Marty Maher, and communications staffer Phil Abramson presented the plan Tuesday to Community Board 2's Parks and Recreation Committee.

They said that while the facility, located near the intersection of Cadman Plaza West and Tillary Street, is currently in use, it will be vacated and free to renovate by spring 2017.

Abramson said the department envisions "a cafe that would really add to the ambiance of Cadman Park," and which could possibly be open year-round.

The city will start accepting proposals from businesses who wish to man the snack bar by June of this year, officials said.

The facility currently has a bathroom used exclusively by NYC Parks employees. However, the concessionaire would have to make that restroom public if it plans to set up 20 or more chairs for customers outside, they said.

Robert Perris, CB2's district manager, said the Parks and Rec committee proposed the idea of a Cadman Plaza snack bar "years ago."

Perris said the kiosk would cater not just to residents, but also to the area's growing number of tourists.

Maher and Abramson said housing the snack bar within the NYC Parks building at Cadman's southwest corner makes more sense than transforming a similar structure in the park's southeast corner — in part because delivery trucks have better access to the western location.

Committee chair Andrew Lastowecky urged the agency to get the space up and running by the summer of 2017.