New Toilet At Brooklyn Park Cost $2M, Councilman Says

KENSINGTON, BROOKLYN — A Brooklyn city councilman said on a real estate panel on Wednesday that a new public bathroom in a city park ended up costing more than $2 million and still isn't completed more than seven years later.

Councilman David Greenfield, who represents part of Kensington, Midwood, Borough Park, Ocean Parkway and Bensonhurst, used that bathroom project to make the case for more private development in city projects.

"We have to be frank," Greenfield told the Crains real estate conference. "Government sucks at development."

Greenfield, the head of the city council's land-use committee, knows a thing or two about parks projects. At a groundbreaking for Di Gilio playground earlier this month, Greenfield said that of the 13 parks in or near his district, upgrades have finished or are underway on 11 of them, and renovations for the other two have been fully funded since he's taken office.

But the bathroom at Gravesend Park is proving to be particularly costly.

"I'm going to end up with a $2 million, 400-square-foot bathroom," Greenfield told the Crains panel, "that I assure you is not going to be 24k-gold-plated."

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Image: David Greenfield, left of center, at the groundbreaking of the Di Gilio playground renovation.