Waterfront Alliance

Waterfront Alliance

Formation	2007
Type	Environmental & Urban Planning Organization
Legal status	Non-profit organization
Headquarters	New York, New York
Region served	New York–New Jersey Harbor Estuary
President & CEO	Cortney Koenig Worrall
Founders	Paul Balser, Kent Barwick, Carter Craft, John Solomon, Paige Sutherland, John Watts
Board Chair	Kathy Robb
Website	waterfrontalliance.org

Waterfront Alliance is a New York City-based nonprofit. The mission of Waterfront Alliance is to assure accessible, dynamic, working, and resilient shorelines that can withstand the impacts of climate change. Waterfront Alliance initiatives fall under four broad categories: climate preparedness; building stewardship; providing public access; and assuring vibrant waterfronts and coastlines.

Launched as a project in 1999-2000 by the Municipal Art Society to advocate for improved ferry services and the creation of parks and trails along the New York-New Jersey shorelines, Waterfront Alliance evolved in 2007 into a separate non-profit organization offering multi-faceted programs that build, transform, revitalize, and protect regional waterfronts and waterways. Waterfront Alliance has grown into an alliance of more than 1,100 institutions and organizations which include collaborative partnerships of business interests, civic organizations, governmental entities, communities, and neighborhoods working to protect and improve 700 miles of waterfront in the New York–New Jersey Harbor Estuary, one of the most intricate natural harbors in the world and one of the busiest shipping ports in the United States.

Waterfront Alliance launched, manages and supports Rise to Resilience, a campaign-driven coalition advocating for federal, state, and local government laws, policies, appropriations, and investments to support an array of climate resilience initiatives in the broad watershed of the New York-New Jersey harbors.

Waterfront Alliance also administers a national certification program called Waterfront Edge Design Guidelines® (WEDG®) which is considered the gold standard for evaluating, preparing, and verifying resilient waterfronts that can meet the impacts of climate change. WEDG provides technical reviews of waterfront projects, continuing education and credentialing for professionals, and policy and finance guidelines to meet Environment, Social, Governance (ESG) investment strategies. Initially designed for application in the New York-New Jersey region, design guidelines have evolved into WEDG® 3.0 to address all types of waterfronts including lake shorefronts and river fronts.

From its inception, Waterfront Alliance has expanded its educational youth programs as part of its commitment to cultivating future environmental stewardship for the area’s waterways evolving into Estuary Explorers, a STEM-based environmental program centered around experiential learning at the waterfront. Since the 2009 launch of its newsletter Waterwire, Waterfront Alliance reports on news, policy, initiatives, events, recreation, historic boats, and issues affecting the region.

Waterfront Alliance initiatives are foremost based on sound ecological principles that restore and maintain habitats and ecosystems; preserve and enhance ecosystem connectivity to bolster biodiversity; avoid human disturbance to natural areas; redevelop and clean up degraded sites; practice sustainable fill and soil management; use renewable and resilient energy sources; reduce emissions through carbon management; require environmentally sound construction practices; conserve water; and provide long-term site oversight and monitoring.

History

Waterfront Alliance initially started as a project in 1999-2000 under the Municipal Art Society to improve ferry service and establish an industrial heritage trail along the East River, a saltwater tidal estuary in New York. The original founders included: Paul Balser, Kent Barwick, Carter Craft, John Solomon, Paige Sutherland, and John Watts. The organization later evolved into an independent nonprofit.

2006, the organization began working with the New York Harbor School to provide educational summer camps for youth.

2007, under the leadership of community activist Roland Lewis, the Metropolitan Waterfront Alliance became independent of the Municipal Art Society. (The organization would later be named Waterfront Alliance.) That year, the new organization and the Municipal Art Society released a documentary called City of Water which advocated for a diverse and vibrant New York City waterfront. Roland Lewis described the documentary as encapsulating “the fulcrum issues that face the waterfront right now.” He said: “Our generation has been presented with a unique opportunity to change the waterfront. The decisions that are facing us right now will affect our grandchildren."

2008, the first-ever City of Water Day was organized to encourage New Yorkers to interact with the city’s waterfront. It continues to be an annual event with water-related activities in all five NYC boroughs.

2008, Waterfront Alliance helped simplify the permitting process for waterfront projects in the New York-New Jersey Harbor by creating a Waterfront Permitting Made Simple website. By November 2008, regional policy makers, activists, planners, and agency representatives introduced an agenda of policy changes and projects called the Waterfront Action Agenda.

2009, Waterfront Alliance launched Waterwire with staff writer Alison Simko, now publisher of The Broadsheet. Waterwire continues to serve as a resource and archive of waterfront and harbor related issues.

2009, Waterfront Alliance helped pass legislation to reinstate the Waterfront Management Advisory Board.

2009 and 2010, Waterfront Alliance worked with the City of New York to develop and execute a public input process to update the Comprehensive Waterfront Plan, a management plan which had not been updated since 1992.  City Council Speaker Christine Quinn announced the multi-year initiative at Waterfront Alliance's City of Water Day to begin the public commenting process

2010, Waterfront Alliance launched and was joined by National Parks Conservation Association (NPCA) to create a bi-state coalition of nonprofit organizations to help secure the federal and state funding needed to address New York-New Jersey harbor needs. Coalition members included: The Environmental Defense Fund, Hudson River Foundation, Ironbound Community Corporation, NY/NJ Baykeeper, NYC Environmental Justice Alliance, Regional Plan Association, Trust for Public Land, and WE ACT. The coalition received support from U.S. Representatives Paul Tonko, Jerrold Nadler, Carolyn Maloney, and Nydia Velazquez.  

Recent Projects

Also in 2008, Waterfront Alliance helped to simplify the permitting process for waterfront projects in the NY-NJ Harbor by creating a Waterfront Permitting Made Simple website.

In 2009 and 2010, the Waterfront Alliance worked with the City of New York to develop and execute a public input process for the update of the Comprehensive Waterfront Plan. MWA initially had worked with the New York City Council to pass legislation requiring the update of the 1992 Comprehensive Waterfront Plan, announced by City Council Speaker Christine Quinn at the Waterfront Alliance's 2008 City of Water Day. The Plan was released by the NYC Department of City Planning in 2011 as Mayor Bloomberg’s Vision 2020: New York City Comprehensive Waterfront Plan.

In 2010, Waterfront Alliance joined with the National Parks Conservation Association (NPCA) to create the New York-New Jersey Harbor Coalition. This bi-state coalition of nonprofit organizations is an advocacy campaign to help secure the federal and state funding needed to transform the NY-NJ Harbor to meet the environmental, recreational, and economic needs of the region’s 22 million residents. In addition to the Waterfront Alliance and the NPCA, the current Coalition members include: The Environmental Defense Fund, Hudson River Foundation, Ironbound Community Corporation, NY/NJ Baykeeper, NYC Environmental Justice Alliance, Regional Plan Association, Trust for Public Land and WE ACT. The group received support from U.S. Representatives Paul Tonko, Jerrold Nadler, Carolyn Maloney and Nydia Velazquez at MWA’s Waterfront Conference Floating Follow-Up in 2011.

The Waterfront Alliance began the Open Waters Initiative in 2010 as a program to construct community docks at waterfront sites in New York City. The first dock will be constructed in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn in 2012.

The Waterfront Alliance organizes 6 task forces to discuss and deliberate waterfront policy, they include: Aquatecture, Water Mass Transit, Green Harbor, Harbor Education, Harbor Recreation and the Working Waterfront.

Annual Events

The Waterfront Alliance's Waterfront Conference is a platform to address current waterfront issues including environmental concerns, climate change, equity and access and financing.

City of Water Day focuses wide-scale public attention on the challenges and opportunities facing the waterfront and the event also highlights solutions. In 2011, 25,000 people participated in the event.

President and CEO

Cortney Koenig Worrall became president and CEO of the Waterfront Alliance in 2020. In her tenure she has redefined Waterfront Alliance’s strategy, leading to national and state level victories in comprehensive flood risk disclosure laws, the securing of new national initiatives that use Waterfront Alliance’s WEDG® (Waterfront Edge Design Guidelines) program. Worrall’s responsibilities include influencing state and city policy regarding climate resilience including comprehensive strategies for Flushing Corona Meadows Park in Queens, New York, one of the largest and most at-risk parks in the region.  

Worrall currently serves as a member of the New York City Bureau of Coastal Resilience Expert Advisory Group and NOAA’s Hudson Canyon National Marine Sanctuary Advisory Council, and is a leadership advisor to New York Climate Exchange at Governors Island.

Prior to the Waterfront Alliance, Worrall led the National Parks Conservation Association’s (NPCA) northeast office where she developed and led comprehensive political strategy for the challenging and complex campaign to create Stonewall National Monument, designated by President Obama in June 2016. She also crafted NPCA’s northeast execution of the campaign to reduce the $12B maintenance backlog affecting national parks—one of the nationally executed campaigns that led to the passage of the Great American Outdoors Act in 2020.

Prior to NPCA, Worrall was second in leadership in the early start-up years of the Waterfront Alliance from 2009 to 2013. During that time, she established the fundamentals of start-up strategies including all operations, fundraising, human resources, and program direction.

Worrall developed waterfront policy for the 2010 New York City Comprehensive Waterfront Plan, executed the Waterfront Alliance’s strategy for five-borough ferry service for New York City, and launched the development of the award-winning WEDG® (Waterfront Edge Design Guidelines) for the New York-New Jersey Harbor. Early in her career, she worked in engineering consulting, specializing in state and federal stormwater regulations for the trucking and railroad industries and municipalities in the state of Georgia.

Worrall earned her Bachelor of Arts in environmental policy from Mount Holyoke College and her Master of Public Administration in advanced management from Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs.

Kathy Robb has served as Board Chair since 2024.