Stung by Lee Iacocca`s charges that the Interior Department wants to
”commercialize” Ellis Island, a National Park Service professional Friday said no final decisions have been made but defended a plan to turn part of the historic site into an international conference center and hotel.
Denis Galvin, deputy director of the National Park Service, held a news conference at which he refused to criticize Iacocca directly but indicated he felt the Chrysler Corp. chairman had misrepresented the park service`s plans for Ellis Island.
Iacocca, speaking Thursday at Chrysler headquarters in Highland Park, Mich., said, ”I will oppose any effort to commercialize this restoration project, and that includes any plans to build a luxury hotel and conference center on the island and, as presently constituted, finance it through the sale of tax shelters to the rich.”
Iacocca was reacting to his dismissal late Wednesday as head of a commission to advise the government on restoration of the island and the Statue of Liberty.
Galvin said 54 plans for refurbishing the island have been put forward in the last 20 years. Fundraising now being conducted by Iacocca would pay only for restoration of the main building and power plant on half of the 27-acre island, which is divided by a ship channel. The other half, which has tumbledown hospital and administrative facilities, would cost an additional $100 million to renovate, Galvin estimated.
The controversy centers on development of this second area.
Iacocca accused Interior Secretary Donald Hodel of firing him as part of a money ”grab” to take away Iacocca`s authority on what will be done to the island. But the disputed area is the second half of the island, Galvin indicated, for which Iacocca has raised no funds.
Iacocca was fired from the advisory panel but remained head of the Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation Inc., the private organization raising money for the work. Hodel said it posed a conflict of interest to have Iacocca in both jobs.
The foundation has raised $235 million and plans to raise $35 million more. That will be enough to redo the Statue of Liberty and the main building, called Building No. 1, on Ellis Island. About 16 million immigrants passed through that building as they entered America in the early part of the century.
Iacocca`s foundation hired an architect to study Ellis Island and came up with a plan to ”stabilize” the old medical facilities by sealing windows, repairing roofs and taking other steps.
Galvin said this part of the island is not a tourist attraction because it is ”unsafe” and it represents such a small part of the island`s historical significance. Only about 2 percent of the immigrants arriving there ever went to the hospital area, he said.
The foundation`s plan also calls for building a modern ”exhibition hall” on the grounds, which Galvin said violates the park service`s normal practice on historic sites.
The notion of turning the old facilities into an international conference center and hotel was approved in 1982 by the park service after a blue-ribbon citizens committee studied 14 proposals for the site. When Iacocca became chairman of the advisory commission and the foundation, however, he asked then Interior Secretary James Watt to delay making a final decision. Watt complied. The advisory panel, now headed by Armen Avedisian, a business and civic leader from Hinsdale, Ill., will advise the National Park Service on what to do with Ellis Island. The park service, which is under the authority of the Interior secretary, will make the final decision.
Galvin said the proposed international center would accomplish the park service`s main goal, which is to preserve the architecture of the old buildings, as well as provide income to pay an estimated $2 million-a-year heating bill for the main building on the other side of the island.
It also would result in the refurbishing of the old buildings at no cost to the park service, he said.
Asked about Iacocca`s charge that the project would be financed by giving rich people tax breaks, Galvin said investors would get the same tax break as other developers of historic sites: 20 percent of the cost could be written off.
