Brooklyn is finally getting a new skyscraper development worthy of its 2.6 million populace. Today, the Landmarks Preservation Commission approved SHoP Architects‘ vision for 9 DeKalb Avenue, a rehabilitation of the landmarked Dime Saving Bank that will marry it with a dramatic, supertall skyscraper behind, the first 1,000+ foot building to arrive in the borough.

The Beaux-Arts banking hall, which is both an interior and exterior landmark, hosted a J.P. Morgan Chase branch up until last year. Now, its new owners, Michael Stern’s JDS Development and the Chetrit Group, plan to transform the hall into a public and retail space that will complement their new tower. To bring back more of the building’s grandeur, its exterior and interior spaces will be restored, and to accommodate the tower behind, the team is calling for the demolition of two nondescript one- and five-story rear annexes, which will then allow for a grand entrance to the skyscraper and a public through-space.

The LPC was enamored with the project, calling it “flawless” and “enlightened urbanism at its best,” as well as touting that it “improved the vision of this historic landmark.” One commissioner even went so far as to say “It’s similar to the Parthenon sitting on the Acropolis.” The LPC had only a few minor modifications, the most notable being that the teller cages be retained until the team can show a plan detailing how the retail tenant (there will only be one) will use the space.

The Dime Savings Bank is among the borough’s greatest architectural icons, boasting a timeless Classical Revival marble exterior with a classical entablature and pediment, resting on stately rows of Ionic columns. It was first finished in 1908 under the architects Mowbray & Uffinger and then greatly expanded in 1932 under Halsey, McCormack & Helmer, who are responsible for the interior’s large gilded Mercury-head dimes and 12 red marble columns supporting the rotunda.

In addition to possibly reconfiguring the teller stations, interior work includes restoration of the rotunda and original Terrazzo marble flooring, replacement of modern flooring with marble flooring, and the addition of double-pane clear glazing at the bank windows.

Set to soar 73 stories and 1,066 feet tall, the tower’s shape uses interlocking hexagons that are inspired by the footprint of the bank and respond to the site’s triangular shape. During the presentation, Gregg Pasquarelli of SHoP Architects noted that they didn’t want to build another slab tower like those on the rise nearby. As such, the facade articulation and the materials used are meant to give the building more texture, especially as it is viewed from different vantages across the city.

Echoing the fluted columns of the bank’s exterior, the tower’s glass facade will be overlaid in ribbons of bronze, stainless steel, and black granite. Inside will be roughly 500 rental units, a mix of high-end apartments and 20 percent below-market rate housing.

During the LPC presentation, Pasquarelli noted that the new atrium will open up views to the bank off Flatbush Avenue, something that currently does not exist. The overall goal of the plan is to improve the landmark’s visibility from all surrounding streets while also optimizing light.

The presentation materials also show how if a 20-story as-of-right tower were to rise on the adjacent site of Junior’s Restaurant, the atrium would provide a visual break and prevent the two edifices from creating a massive wall.

Gregg Pasquarelli of SHoP Architects presenting this morning at the LPC

According to one LPC Commissioner, the reasons the project is successful are: 1) the restoration and adaptive reuse 2) the massing of the building and site planning and how it molds and shifts to nod at the primacy of the landmark and 3) the design itself, which is sensitive to materials, quality, and urban context. “It creates a spiral and a beautiful piece of architecture to mark an important node,” she said.

If all goes as planned, the project will finish sometime in 2019. Stay up-to-date on leasing and listings for 9 DeKalb Avenue Extension over at CityRealty. And view the team’s entire LPC presentation in PDF form here.

[Additional reporting provided by Diane Pham]

RELATED:

• New Close-Up Renderings of Brooklyn’s Future Tallest Tower
• Check Out These Insane Views From Brooklyn’s First 1,000+ Foot Tower
• All 9 DeKalb Avenue coverage on 6sqft

Within Downtown Brooklyn‘s detached island of urbanity between the Manhattan Bridge on-ramp and the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, local architecture firm StudiosC has designed a modestly scaled, ground-up condominium at the corner of Bridge and Nassau Streets. Re-approved plans filed by the architect of record Karl Fischer detail an eight-story building with 12,000 square feet of gross floor area.

StudiosC’s project page says the building is envisioned as a statement to express its verticality and connect to its surrounding context seamlessly. It will present a modern facade of grey brick, light colored mortar joints, protruding corner windows, and two lines of juliet balconies. Inside will be nine condos crafted with a simple concept of what a luxury apartment can be. Homes will boast open layouts, large windows, wood floors, and windowed bathrooms with marble finishes. Construction of 187 Bridge is well underway with two stories remaining to frame out.  Occupancy is slated for late 2016.

The project’s five-block neighborhood, at the edge of Downtown Brooklyn and DUMBO has seen a surge of construction activity over the past decade. The site sits adjacent to the 58-unit condominium, Bridgeview Tower at 189 Bridge Street, which was finished in 2007. A two-bedroom home recently placed in contract had an asking price of $925,000 ($1,166 per square foot).

Find future listings for 187 Bridge at CityRealty.

RELATED:

• Checking in on Adam America’s Trio of Developments on a Single Boerum Hill Block
• New Renderings of Park Slope’s Parking Garage Condo Conversion at 800 Union Street
• Morris Adjmi’s 465 Pacific Street Tops Out, Only One Penthouse Unit Remains

Photo of the construction progress at 461 Dean Street in January, via Field Condition

After suffering delays, lawsuits, leaks and alignment issues, Pacific Park’s 461 Dean Street (aka the B2 Tower) is finally wrapping up construction and has just launched its affordable housing lottery. The 32-story structure from SHoP Architects will be the world’s tallest prefab tower, and of its 363 units, 181 will be available to low- and middle-income households. This will range from $559/month studios to $3,012 two-bedrooms and from individuals earning $20,675 annually to families of four earning $144,960.

Apartments feature wide-plank white walnut flooring, brushed metal hardware, oversized windows, and in-unit washers and dryers. Kitchens have stainless steel appliances, custom-made lacquered cabinetry, and quartz countertops.

Renderings via SHoP Architects

Amenities, which require an additional fee, include a fitness center, private dining room, lounge, terrace, children’s play room, game room, and art studio.

In total, the 22-acre Pacific Park complex, which is anchored by the Barclays Center, will have 16 condo towers and 2,250 units of affordable housing. The lottery for 461 Dean Street is open through June 27th. Those who qualify can apply here, and you can find out more information on the development’s official affordable housing site.

Find below our map of other ongoing housing lotteries:

RELATED:

• Atlantic Yards’ B2 Tower Employing Anti-Nausea Technology From NASA
• Leaks and Alignment Issues Plaguing Atlantic Yards’ B2 Tower Were More Severe Than Reported
• Renderings Revealed for Pacific Park Mega-Development’s Eight-Acre Green Space

Within the human-scaled oasis between the Manhattan Bridge and the BQE, a 57,000-square-foot church conversion has wrapped up construction, releasing 84 brand-new no-fee rental apartments to the Downtown Brooklyn market. Named One Duffield, for its address at the corner of Gold and Duffield streets, the five-story building uses some of the structural bones of a prior two-story church and completely re-imagines its aesthetic into a varied composition of brown and orange brick, metal siding, and large square windows. Nataliya Donskoy of ND Architecture and Design P.C. is the designer of the building and “The Bridge Building LLC” is listed as the developer in permits.

Rents are net effective with one free month embedded in prices. Available studios and one-bedrooms begin at $2,400/month, two-bedrooms at $3,138 and three-bedrooms at $4,153. Residences are outfitted with floor-to-ceiling windows, oak and maplewood herringbone parquet floors, large closets and kitchen cabinetry, and bathrooms are equipped with brass fixtures and marble backsplashes. Additionally, many units feature private balconies, terraces, and/or direct access to the roof.

Pets are allowed, and amenities include a full business center with free wifi and 24-hour coffee room, a fitness center, billiard lounge, atrium reading room with a 40-foot-high open ceiling, outdoor courtyard, finished roof deck with sweeping views, on-site parking and bicycle parking. The building is within walking distance to York Street station on the F subway line and close to the offices of MetroTech and DUMBO. Golconda Playground is across from the building and is undergoing a renovation that will completely overhaul its 18,000-square-foot skatepark.

Find future listings for One Duffield at CityRealty.

RELATED:

• First Look StudiosC’s Bed Stuy Rental Underway at 1875 Atlantic Avenue
• Greenpoint’s 533 Leonard Condos Hit the Market Asking Above Neighborhood Average
• Checking in on Adam America’s Trio of Developments on a Single Boerum Hill Block

Photos via 6sqft; Renderings via ND Architecture and Design

Find listings and more information on One Duffield at CityRealty

City Tower, the second phase of Downtown Brooklyn’s 1.8 million-square-foot, mixed-use mega-development, has debuted, ushering in 439 brand new market-rate rentals to the heart of the borough. For a limited time, the building is offering new renters one month for free based on a 13-month lease. The 38-story tower’s current availabilities include four studios starting at $2,423/month, five one-bedrooms at $2,838/month, and three two-bedrooms at $4,154/month.

The building was developed and is being managed by the long-established Brodsky Organization and was designed by the acclaimed eco-conscious architects at COOKFOX. Perched twenty floors above 700,000 square feet of retail, entertainment and dining spaces, many of City Tower’s residences provide spectacular views of the harbor and Manhattan skyline.

Interiors are open, modern, and outfitted with environmentally responsive features. Kitchens come in three finishes and are equipped with integrated refrigerators and dishwashers, white quartz countertops, appliances by Blomberg, Bertazzoni, and Bosch, and Grohe and Kohler fixtures. Living rooms are provided with large windows with custom solar shades. Bathrooms have oversized floating vanities with custom open shelving, mosaic tiled walls, and taupe linen flooring. Throughout the units, floors are sheathed in five-inch-wide oak planks.

The building is aspiring for LEED silver certification. The lobby’s feature wall is clad in reclaimed wood joists from a warehouse in Williamsburg, and woods used throughout the apartments have been certified as sustainability harvested. Additionally, recycled materials, such as steel, gypsum board and concrete, are used throughout the structure, and the building’s filtered air and the use of low VOC emitting materials contribute to a higher indoor air quality.

Residents have access to more than more than 23,000 square feet of indoor amenities and outdoor spaces. Green spaces on the 6th-, 18th-, and 43rd-floor terraces are landscaped to promote biodiversity as well as mitigate the heat island effect of hot New York summers. On the amenity floor is a basketball court, health club, and residents’ lounge with café. There is also a 24/7 doorman, bicycle storage, and a business center. The building is also situated near an abundance of subway lines, including the B-D-N-Q-R station just 20 feet away.

Find all listings for City Tower at CityRealty.

RELATED:

• Skyline Wars: Brooklyn Enters the Supertall Race
• Leasing Begins at Downtown Brooklyn’s One Duffield, No-Fee Units Begin at $2,400/Month
• Lottery Launches for 181 Affordable Units in Pacific Park’s Modular Tower

Carter Uncut brings New York City’s latest development news under the critical eye of resident architecture critic Carter B. Horsley. Here, Carter brings us his fifth installment of “Skyline Wars,” a series that examines the explosive and unprecedented supertall phenomenon that is transforming the city’s silhouette. In this post Carter looks at Brooklyn’s once demure skyline, soon to be Manhattan’s rival.

Downtown Brooklyn has had a modest but pleasant skyline highlighted by the 350-foot-high Court & Remsen Building and the 343-foot-high great ornate terraces of 75 Livingston Street, both erected in 1926, and the 462-foot-high flat top of the 1927 Montague Court Building. The borough’s tallest building, however, was the great 514-foot-high dome of the 1929 Williamsburg Savings Bank Tower, now known as One Hanson Place, a bit removed to the east from Downtown Brooklyn. It remained as the borough’s tallest for a very long time, from 1929 until 2009. A flurry of new towers in recent years has significantly enlarged Brooklyn’s skyline. Since 2008, nine new towers higher than 359 feet have sprouted there, in large part as a result of a rezoning by the city in 2007. A few other towers have also given its riverfront an impressive frontage.

Whereas in the past the vast majority of towers were clustered about Borough Hall downtown, now there are several clusters with some around the Brooklyn Academy of Music and the former Williamsburg Savings Bank Tower and some around the Williamsburg riverfront.

The new towers have a funky brazenness that they probably inherited by the profusion of ersatz low-rise buildings scattered around Williamsburg in recent years.

Unlike the many supertalls now proliferating along the Central Park South/57th Street corridor in Manhattan that have few but large apartments, most of Brooklyn’s new crop are shorter but more massive with more but smaller units.

In August 2015, however, a new project was announced by Michael Stern of JDS Development and Joseph Chetrit of the Chetrit Group that will catapult Brooklyn into the supertall league; a 1,066-foot-high tower next to Junior’s, the famous cheesecake emporium on DeKalb Street. The 73-story tower will contain nearly 500 rental apartments, 20 percent of which will be below market-rate. SHoP Architects is designing the tower project.

Stern and Chetrit completed their previously announced $90 million purchase of the century-old Dime Savings Bank building in downtown Brooklyn in December 2015, allowing them to build the city’s tallest tower outside Manhattan.

The pair bought 9 DeKalb Avenue from J.P. Morgan Chase, which had used the space as a bank branch before putting the property on the market a year ago. As Crain’s previously reported, the developers entered into a contract this past summer to purchase the landmarked 100,000-square-foot Beaux Arts building, which was completed in 1908.

Stern and Chetrit can transfer the property’s 300,000 square feet of unused development rights to an adjacent site they own at 340 Flatbush Avenue Extension. That will allow them to build a 600,000-square-foot residential tower.

Stern and Chetrit plan to lease the bank hall as retail and to create a public through-space. The bank floor, which will also be complemented by a glass atrium extension, will provide a grand entrance to the residential tower.

The New York Times quoted Mr. Stern as stating “we’re really excited to give Brooklyn a building that isn’t bashful, that isn’t shy,” adding that “we want this project to encapsulate everything that is great about Brooklyn’s past, and everything that is great about Brooklyn’s future.”

The development received unanimous approval at a Landmarks Preservation Commission hearing on April 18, 2016 with only “minor modifications”—namely that the teller cages that line the bank’s hall be retained until the team can show a plan detailing how the retail tenant will use the space.

Stern previously converted a former Verizon facility on West 18th Street into a luxury condo building called Walker Tower and at 111 West 57th Street, he is erecting a 1,400-foot ultra-luxury condo tower that will preserve and incorporate the landmarked former Steinway & Sons piano showroom.

Bob Knakal, Cushman & Wakefield’s chairman of investment sales, along with colleagues James Nelson and Stephen Palmese, handled the sale for JPMorgan Chase. “This transaction is indicative of the strength of both the retail and development markets in Brooklyn,” Knakal told Crain’s, adding that “it paves the way for an iconic structure that will forever impact the Brooklyn skyline.”

Since the 2004 rezoning, Downtown Brooklyn has seen 6,758 apartments built with 5,254 under construction and an additional 7,790 in the planning stages. The architectural quality of Brooklyn’s tall buildings is, however, mixed.

***

One Hanson Place, long an isolated pinnacle, is now crowded with new towers and being exposed to the hordes who attend events at the nearby new Barclay’s Center

Two of its older tall buildings, One Hanson Place and 75 Livingston Street, are superb and hold their own with Manhattan’s finest.

The Williamsburg Savings Bank Building, an office building converted to residential use with 176 condominium apartments in 2007 and renamed One Hanson Place, was for decades Brooklyn’s most prominent skyscraper and its stunning limestone base and banking hall and stepped tower topped with clockfaces and a dome make it one of the city’s handsomest.

The 37-story tower, which is at the intersection of Atlantic, Flatbush and Fourth Avenues, was designed by Halsey, McCormack and Helmer, which is now Mancini Duffy, and was declared a landmark in 1977 and its 63-foot-high, ornate banking hall was declared an interior landmark in 1996.

75 Livingston Street, which was also known as the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce Building and the Court Chambers Building

75 Livingston has no clock faces but lots of ornate terracotta-faced terraces that make it one of the city’s most attractive towers. It was erected in 1926 and was known as the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce Building and then the Court Chambers Building. The architect and developer of the 30-story Neo-Gothic tower, which is also known as 66 Court Street, was Abraham J. Simberg.

The September 13, 2011 designation report of the Borough Hall Skyscraper Historic District provided the following commentary about 75 Livingston Street:

“Unlike most of the business buildings on Court Street—which were developed by large Manhattan firms and designed by established architects—the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce Building was constructed for a relatively small Brooklyn real estate company working with a recently-licensed architects. The owner of record for the building 66-74 Court Street Realty Corporation, was headed by Jacob Adelman whose J. F. I. Construction Company apparently specialized in apartment house construction on Ocean Parkway and in other parts of Brooklyn. An article in The New York Times indicated that the building’ designer, Abraham J. Simberg, also worked primarily on low-scale apartment houses during the mid-1920s, and it is likely that he met Adelman on one of these projects. The Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce Building was by far the largest project that either the developer or the architect had yet undertaken; despite their inexperience with skyscraping office towers they produced a building of considerable elegance and sophistication. The massing of the structure was quite complicated, with five primary setbacks above the 13-story base. These setbacks in turn were refined with projecting pavilions, chamfered corners, and secondary setbacks that gave the building visual interest well beyond what was required by the zoning regulations and equal to that of any skyscraper in Greater New York. The neo-Gothic ornament of the building is also notable. The lower stories are clad with delicate limestone tracery framing large triple-height openings set with elaborate metal spandrels. The upper stories feature well executed patterned brick work – particularly in the recessed spandrel panels and projecting piers that enhance the building’s vertical emphasis – and sumptuous terra-cotta ornament at each setback that highlights the complicated massing.”

Montague Court Building

The Montague Court Building at 16 Court Street was erected in 1928 and designed by H. Craig Severance, who also designed 40 Wall Street in Manhattan. The 38-story tower is 462 feet high and was the second highest in the borough when it was built after the Williamsburg Savings Bank Building. The handsome tower is prominent on the Brooklyn skyline when viewed from Lower Manhattan.

280 Cadman Plaza West

On November 1, 2015, the City Planning Commission approved plans by The Hudson Companies for a 36-story tower at 280 Cadman Plaza West that will include a library and two retail spaces beneath 139 residential condominium apartments. The very handsome, wedge-shaped tower, which has been designed by Marvel Architects, will not be the tallest of the new crop of Brooklyn buildings, but it will be one of the most prominent especially when viewed from Manhattan. The development will also create 114 units of affordable housing on two privately owned sites in Community Board 2.

Rendering of 700-foot-high tower planned at 205 Montague Street in Brooklyn Heights

280 Cadman plaza West will obscure much of One Pierrepont Place, a 1988 office building designed by Haines Lundberg Waehler that will be bookended by a new 700-foot-high tower planned by Midtown Equities to replace a five-story building at 205 Montague Street. Midtown Equities bought the site in 2010 for $33 million and two years later paid more than $3 million to remove previous development restrictions and buy neighboring air rights.

The fifth edition of The AIA Guide to New York City noted that One Pierrepont Place was a “behemoth” that “not only looms over the [Brooklyn] Heights but has become an obese silhouette to much of Brooklyn,” adding that its green “mansarded crest gives a flashy cap to a dumpy body.” The green mansard roof echoed some others further inland but nearby on more attractive torsos.

Barclays Center

Brooklyn Heights and Park Slope remain heavenly havens of townhouse bliss, but the Barclays Center is an awesome cosmic force.

Its rust-color, metallic “skin” swoops and has a giant maw that gobbles up visitors like the whale that ate Pinocchio. It is low-rise and not as visible as riverfront projects but it is very close to One Hanson Place and the myriad transit connections of Atlantic Terminal, the heart of Brooklyn. Its front is marred by the very large and bright blue name sign that would look better in red. The sign, however, at least is not garish and is overlooked with the bat of an eye that is magnetized by the rest of the structure. The architects at SHoP exploded the notion of an entrance marquee with a very large opening that provides no shelter, but whose inner frame are screens for promoting events and advertising, a triumph of enveloping marketing.

The Barclays Center dramatically replaced, many decades later, not geographically but spiritually, Ebbets Field, the Brooklyn Dodger baseball ballpark, as the epicenter of Brooklyn.

Images: Frank Gehry’s plan for Forest City Ratner had stainless steel tower at left and red tower at right framing new basketball arena at Atlantic Yards (L); Bright red residential mid-rise building just to the east and adjacent to Barclays Center (R)

Ideally, such a structure should be free-standing but there is a long history to this site and originally the “arena” was to have been book-ended by large residential towers in a great scheme by Frank Gehry that juggled buildings and facades in a very dynamic fashion.

When Forest City Ratner dropped Gehry’s design when the real estate market collapsed several years ago, it opted for a far simpler, and cheaper design from Ellerbe Beckett in 2009. Then it brought in SHoP to spruce up that design. SHoP, which first found fame with its design of The Porter House on the southeast corner of 15th Street and Ninth Avenue, came up with a very flamboyant and original design that is the best they have turned out in a giant flurry of projects.

The project covers the Atlantic Terminal Urban Renewal Area, with parts extending into the adjacent brownstone neighborhood of Fort Greene. The idea for a Dodgers baseball stadium was considered in the 1950s, but it was dismissed by Robert Moses as creating a Great Wall of traffic. Of the 22-acre project, 8.4 acres is located over a Long Island Rail Road train yard. The Barclays Center sports arena opened on September 21, 2012.

Pacific Park site plan

Formerly named Atlantic Yards, the developer renamed the project Pacific Park in August 2014 as part of a rebranding, and last year the China-based developer China Greenland started selling condos at 550 Vanderbilt Avenue with Forest City.

The Gehry plan was just another fabulous concoction that the architect and his computers spew out with impressive regularity. It would have been sensational and dazzling and Ratner deserves great credit for commissioning it. Given Gehry’s oeuvre, it was par for his great course.

SHoP’s plan, on the other hand, is stupendously awesome and surprising and original and very visceral, but not dazzling. If it weren’t so low-rise it could easily be considered very aggressive, a project that will eat its neighborhood and that, indeed, has concerned many local residents over the years. It will, of course, be years before the enormous development if finished so final appraisals must be put off. There is, however, no denying the allure, indeed, romance of the SHoP design. Don’t cry out for Superman here, but the Phantom of the Opera.

One would never hesitate to take the bus from Manhattan to go to the great Brooklyn Academy of Music for its fabulous productions by Philip Glass and Pina Bausch. Now one can take the subways to Barclays Center for the Nets and Madonna.

The Toren and the City Point complex on Flatbush Avenue

The 37-story apartment tower at 150 Myrtle Avenue is known as Toren. It was completed in 2009 and erected by BFC Partners of which Branson Baron, Joseph Ferrara and Donald Capoccia are principals. It was designed by Carl Galioto of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill.

It is an ambitious but failed attempt to create a modern obelisk worthy of Brooklyn’s quirkiness; it has mind-blowing tower facades that randomly appear to be shedding their skins like silvery rattlesnakes. The problem is that many of the corner windows severely interrupt the tower’s vertical thrust and make it appear as if some of its edges had been gnawed away by some hungry phantom unleashed from the dungeons of the marvelous fortress-like base that yearns for vats of fiery oil to be emptied on assaulting, disrespectful pedestrians, grammarticians obsessed with run-on sentences and architecture critics.

Brownstoner described the tower as “reminiscent of a barcode,” which is very high praise for this digital age. The building, of course, transcends mere “high-tech” analogies. Its base harkens to accordion concertos and Fortuny pleated skirts. You are tempted to dance with this tower if you knew where to grab it.

If you are cruising from Manhattan, this is the misplaced belltower for the coiled snakeskin of Barclays Center several blocks down the road. This incongruous pair can eat Madison Square Garden alive but look out for the belch.

The Avalon Fort Greene at 343 Gold Street

Avalon Fort Greene (seen left in the above photo) is a 42-story rental apartment building with 631 units that was erected in 2009. The impressive two-tone slab tower was erected by Avalon Bay Communities and designed by Perkins Eastman Architects.

The massive structure is a good neighbor for its flourish of piers and hard edged corners that provide a stark contrast to Toren’s aesthetic but its reddish pallor also complements a large building across the avenue. It’s as if the three surrounding reddish structures are bodyguards for the rambunctious and wild Toren, calming the area before Barclay Center rears its head over the horizon to defend Toren.

City Point

One of the most prominent Brooklyn Downtown sites is occupied by the City Point project. The Albee Theater once stood there and was replaced in 1980 by the Albee Mall that survived until it was demolished in 2007.

In 1969, Mayor Lindsay announced a plan to revitalize downtown Brooklyn with 5,000 new housing units, 25,000 new office jobs and 25,000 new students on 45 acres with a three-block galleria of elevated pedestrian walkways like the Embarcadero Center in San Francisco. By 1970, however, the plan was substantially reduced to eight acres, the Fulton Mall on Fulton Street between Adams Street and Flatbush Avenue evolved with with some “big box” stores but it had no grand elevated pedestrian walkways.

In the 1980s, MetroTech Center, an office complex, began to take over much of the area and a decade or so ago, the California Public Employees’ Retirement System got involved in a plan to redevelop the Albee Mall, but it eventually withdrew when the real estate market collapsed.

The City Point development consists of four components: a low-rise retail mall at One DeKalb at the southern tip of the site that includes a Trader Joe’s and an Century 21 store; a zinc-clad apartment tower with 80 percent of its units affordable developed by BFC Partners, Washington Square Partners and Acadia Realty Trust; a market-rate rental apartment tower developed by the Brodsky Organization; and an Extell Development apartment tower of about 57 stories at the northern end of the site. The first two components of the project have been crisply designed by COOKFOX Architects, while the 500-unit Extell tower is the design of Kohn Pedersen Fox.

Unlike many large residential complexes in the city that present a unified front, City Point has taken an individualistic approach to its massing that befits the fact that it now has three different developers.

DKLB BKLN at 80 DeKalb Avenue

The borough’s best modern skyscraper is DKLB BKLN, a 34-story, 369-unit rental apartment tower designed by Costas Kondylis Design for Forest City Ratner Companies and completed in 2010.

It is a highly articulated, modern, glass-and stainless-steel slab with seven main piers on its long sides creating many angled bay windows. The tower is setback on a pleated base and it has four setbacks on one of its short sides, each topped with angled windows and the topmost mechanical enclosure echoes the base’s pleated design.

The pleats of the long facades make it glitter in the sun but that dazzling effect is mitigated by large, tall, flat glass expanses that interrupt the “pleating” vertically in a seemingly random fashion. Try to imagine a shimmering sequin dress on a chic woman quivering at your favorite disco! No, the building doesn’t shimmy-shake, but it sure has vibes.

There are a few other handsome new towers, which include a distinguished Dattner Architects-designed 53-story slab apartment tower at 333 Schermerhorn Street known as The Hub, and FXFowle’s elegant, 52-story, slab apartment tower at 250 Ashland Place in the Brooklyn Academy of Music Cultural District near One Hanson Place. The 568-foot-high tower, which will be called the Ashland, will have more than 500 rental apartments, more than half of which will be below market-rate.

66 Rockwell Place

The Dermot Company has recently erected the attractive 66 Rockwell Plaee, a 42-story rental tower designed by Ismael Leyva Architects with 327 apartments, many balconies and reflective glass facades.

BAM South

The 32-story BAM (Brooklyn Academy of Music) South building at 286 Ashland Place is under construction and due for completion next year. It is being erected by Two Trees, the development of the Domino Sugar property and has been designed by TEN Arquitectos and Ismael Leyva. It will have 384 apartments.

Brooklyner at 111 Lawrence Street

The 51-story Brooklyner at 111 Lawrence Street was the tallest building in Brooklyn when it was completed in 2009, beating out One Hanson Place (erected in 1929) by two feet. It was developed by The Clarett Group and designed by Gerner Kronick + Valcarcel. It has 491 rental apartments. Its broad east and west facades of the slab tower have sporty red and blue facades while the narrower north and south facades have broad center concrete piers and corner windows. The facades’ jaunty palettes get a bit lighter as they rise from the street and its asymmetrical roofline with an exposed water tank gives it a something of a “grass-roots” motif as opposed to Manhattan’s tall-building slickness.

AVA DoBro and 388 Bridge Street

Another exposed roof-top watertank can be found nearby at AVA DoBro (seen left in the above photo), which used to be known as Avalon Willoughby West. The 595-foot-high tower at 100 Willoughby Street was developed by Avalon Bay Communities and designed by SCLE Architects. The 57-story tower has 823 apartments and will be completed this year.

It is notable for its very mottled, dizzying façade, evidently bruised by chest-bumping with 388 Bridge Street (seen right in the above photo), who it deposed as the tallest tower in Brooklyn after a short reign. AVA DoBro, which is five feet taller than 388 Bridge, conjures a dark and too busy version of Mondrian’s “Boogie-Woogie.”

388 Bridge was completed in 2013 and boasts two 17-foot-high wind turbines on its roof that power a changing color light display. It has 234 rental units and 144 condominium units, was erected by the estate of Stanley Stahl and was also designed by SCLE in a calm, elegant mood as opposed to the schizophrenic, blotchy AVA DoBro. The good news is that from some directions, 388 Bridge and the Brooklyner block out some of the views of AVA DoBro. This trio is Brooklyn’s answer to the tuning-fork visual vibrations of the CitySpire, Metropolitan Tower, Carnegie Hill Tower and One57 cluster on 56th and 57th Streets between Sixth and Seventh Avenues in Manhattan.

The Oro Condominium

Rose Associates completed the 40-story Oro Condominium at 306 Gold Street at the northwest corner of Johnson Street in 2008 when it became the tallest building erected in Brooklyn in about 80 years. It was designed by Ismael Leyva Architects and has many rounded corner windows and an angled top that almost conceals its water tank.

A very similar tower that had been called Oro 2 has been renamed BKLYN Air at 309 Gold Street. It is 36 stories tall and has 255 apartments. It opened in 2014 and was built by Lalezarian Properties and designed by Ismael Leyva Architects. The towers are more attractive because they are sisters.

The J Condominium

The J Condominium is very prominent because its location at 100 Jay Street is very close to a bridge and its height in a low-rise neighborhood. Its non-bridge façade, shown above, is very attractive because it is slightly curved and divided into three glassy sections that vary in height. Gruzen Samton Steinglass designed it and it was completed in 2007 in the pre-supertall age when large buildings in Brooklyn had many small and medium-size apartments rather than splendiferous large full-floor digs. It has 266 apartments and was erected by The Hudson Companies that is also building a complex and handsome mid-rise residential development called Navy Yard near the Brooklyn Navy Yard.

Spitzer Development’s Riverfront Tower Proposal

There is a lot of riverfront activity, some decent and some dubious. While most of Brooklyn’s new crop of towers are relatively conventional “sticks,” former New York State Governor Eliot Spitzer’s development company, Spitzer Enterprises, has commissioned a trio of mid-rise towers on the riverfront in South Williamsburg from ODA Architecture, which is headed by Eren Chen.

They will be a squatter echo to the shimmy-shimmy-shake trio of high-rise residential towers known as Urban Ready Living Harborside designed by Concrete and HLW International across the harbor in Jersey City as block away from the Hudson River. ODA’s design call for chunky and bumpy but very distinctive, 24-story towers whereas the towers at URL Harborside are almost three times as tall, thinner and therefore arguably more graceful. The first tower at Harborside was recently topped out. ODA’s towers will contain 856 apartments with about 20 percent reserved as “affordable.” The site at 420-430 Kent Avenue is just south of the Williamsburg Bridge and was the former site of the Kedem Winery at Kent Avenue and South 8th Street.

The Edge

The 2008 Edge complex just to the north of the somewhat taller 2007 Northside Piers has many balconies with blue-glass railings that initially appeared a bit gaudy, a flamboyant but feeble effort to make color a distinctive architecture ornament/element. The project’s juxtaposition with Northside Piers, however, mitigated some petty design critique when the project’s ground level pavilion with Deconstructivist angled columns was completed. Anything Deconstructivist, especially in this city, is not only good but very welcome. For a borough that reeks with out-of-the-ordinary small projects with odd palettes and unexpected protuberances, “nice touches” in prominent high-rise projects are to be applauded and encouraged.

The dubious riverfront development is the Domino Sugar project being developed by Two Trees, which handsomely converted many of the commercial properties in DUMBO to residential uses and provided a waterfront carousel in a handsome plaza.

Two Trees commissioned SHoP Architects to design numerous new buildings around the large former factory building and in negotiations with the city and the community carved large openings in some of them to permit light to penetrate “inland.” The project’s renderings, however, are not encouraging and the pierced buildings are not graceful and cannot begin to compare with the great Chinese communications building in Beijing that looks like it was designed with a slingshot by Rem Koolhaas. This project’s extensive landscaping by James Corner Field Operations, of course, goes a long way in distracting from the towers. After all when you’ve got Manhattan to look out, who cares what these towers look like, one might suggest.

More importantly, Paul Raphaelson was granted access for a day in August 2013 and a week in October 2013 to photograph the spectacular interior of the refinery. Architect Magazine published several of the photographs in a July 7, 2015 article by Hallie Busta that will be published in a book, “Sweet Ruin: The Brooklyn Domino Sugar Refinery.”

A “bin distribution machine” inside the Domino Sugar Refinery main building as photographed by Paul Raphaelson for his new book “Sweet Ruin: The Brooklyn Domino Sugar Refinery.”

One hopes that not only will the bin distribution machine be preserved, as is, in the refinery’s interior, but also that it serve as inspiration for a closely related monumental work of art to be commissioned in an international competition for the refinery’s waterfront. After that and their wonderful carousel, the city can give the Walentases Coney Island to work with….

Greenpoint Landing

Park Tower Realty and Brookfield Property are planning 10 buildings with 5,500 rental apartments on a 22-acre riverfront site in Greenpoint. The first two rental towers, one 30 stories and the other 40, have been handsomely designed by Handel Architects and the feature zippered angled bases and lots of multi-paned windows finessly framed on the towers that have distinctive tops. About 25 percent of the apartments will be below market-rate.

***

The current construction boom is quite spectacular, not only filling in glaring “holes” but also developing new clusters and “sub” centers. The old downtown has been exploded even as the waterfronts have matured nicely and small residential projects and scads of new restaurants and beer gardens have proliferated it seems everywhere, all enticing and fetching and distinct. Some of the projects don’t quite cut Parisian mustard but in the aggregate they are undeniably charming. There’s a whole lot o’ reverberant construction going on. And though one supertall may not create a world-class city, just you wait…Brooklyn’s alive! 

Carter is an architecture critic, editorial director of CityRealty.com and the publisher of The City Review. He worked for 26 years at The New York Times where he covered real estate for 14 years, and for seven years, produced the nationally syndicated weeknight radio program “Tomorrow’s Front Page of The New York Times.” For nearly a decade, Carter also wrote the entire North American Architecture and Real Estate Annual Supplement for The International Herald Tribune. Shortly after his time at the Tribune, he joined The New York Post as its architecture critic and real estate editor. He has also contributed to The New York Sun’s architecture column. 

RELATED:

• 22,000 New Apartments Coming to Northern Brooklyn by 2019
• Skyline Wars: In Lower Manhattan, A New Downtown Is Emerging
• Skyline Wars: What’s Rising in Hudson Yards, the Nation’s Largest Construction Site

Downtown Brooklyn and its Fulton Street Mall lost a bit of its soul late last year with the demolition of an ornate 1891 Romanesque-Reviaval gem at 540 Fulton Street. Prior to being cleared, the two-story structure held a jumble of small retailers that included a jewelry exchange, Metro King Sushi & Teriyaki and a Lucille Roberts. When the building was finished 125 years ago, it rose three floors with its first tenant being F.W Woolworth’s “five-and-dime store,” their first Downtown Brooklyn location.

Now with the slate wiped clean, what’s envisioned to rise from the 18,531-square-foot lot near the corner of Flatbush Avenue Extension is a 19-story, 200,000-square-foot office block developed by the real estate investment and management firm Jenel Management. A new building application was filed with the Department of Building’s last April, listing Marvel Architects as the applicant of record. The proposed building’s podium will contain three levels of retail space from the cellar to the second level, and 17 floors of office space above.

Renderings published on Excel Property Consulting website’s are in line with the DOB filings and depict a rudimentary glass and metal clad building with large floor plates and two sections of receded floors. As we all know, Downtown Brooklyn is undergoing a tremendous resurgence, yielding thousands of residential units, and is now facing commercial pressure to create space for the borough’s burgeoning technology industry. A few blocks away, JEMB Realty is planning a 400,000 square foot office tower at 420 Albee Square Albee Square West designed by Kohn Pedersen Fox.

The handsome building that stood at the project site was designed by the architects Ross & Marvin, and was featured as Brownstoner’s “Building of the Day” in spring 2012 where commenters debated the feasibility of creating a Fulton Mall Historic district. The blog uncovered a 1904 photograph of the building showing its original rusticated base and the third story that was capped by a deep cornice. Like many of the retail stretch’s buildings, the structure underwent architecturally insensitive alterations, removing the third story and subdividing the ground level for an assortment of small tenants. Nevertheless, it’s second story composed of five impressive arched windows surrounded by intricate brickwork was still a delight.

RELATED:

• LPC Approves Brooklyn’s First 1,000+ Foot Tower; New Renderings and Details
• Skyline Wars: Brooklyn Enters the Supertall Race
• Downtown Brooklyn’s Newly-Launched City Tower Offering One Month Free Rent

John Catsimatidis’ Big Apple Group has kicked-off leasing for The Giovanni, the latest addition to a quartet of rental buildings ushering in more than 1,000 units along a once underutilized section of Myrtle Avenue. Located at 81 Fleet Place within the crossroads of bucolic Fort Greene and thriving Downtown Brooklyn, the recently finished 15-floor building is comprised of 205 no-fee apartments with retail space along its lower levels.

Like its sister buildings, the Andrea and the Margo, Dattner is the building’s architect and the firm has configured a mix of studio, one- and two-bedroom apartments, many featuring balconies or roof terraces.

For a limited time, the marketing team is offering renters one month free on new leases. CityRealty currently lists 23 apartments available, ranging from studios with net effective rents (NER) starting at $2,379/month upwards to a spacious one-bedroom unit on the 14th floor listed at a NER of $4,121/month.

Top-floor apartments provide dramatic views of the Manhattan skyline and the East River bridges, and corner units are outfitted with large floor-to-ceiling windows. Floors are sheathed in dark maple and open kitchens are equipped with Caesarstone countertops, a four-piece stainless steel appliance package, and blue glass tiled back-splash. Bathrooms are clad in white tile and have Toto, Grohe and Kohler fixtures. Homes also have large closets and a Bosch washer and dryer.

Building amenities include a full-time doorman and concierge, 2,000 square-foot fitness center, yoga/personal training studio, a screening room, a children’s playroom, bicycle storage, tenant storage, on-site parking and a landscaped and furnished third floor deck with barbecue area.

The Giovanni is pet friendly and is situated steps away from doggy-paradise, Fort Greene Park. The DeKalb Avenue subway station serving the B-D-N-Q-R trains is nearby and the building is close to the Barclays Center, Fulton Mall, Metrotech, Atlantic Center Mall, the Farmers Market at Washington Park, BAM and the Fulton Street Mall.

Follow updates and find listings for The Giovanni at CityRealty.

RELATED:

• Two Bridges Rental Offers Family-Sized Homes with East River Views for Under $5,000/Month
• Angular Skyscraper One Sixty Madison Offering Two Months Free Rent
• REVEALED: First Look at Downtown Brooklyn’s New Office Tower at 540 Fulton Street

The latest tower to open its doors in Downtown Brooklyn‘s BAM Cultural District is 300 Ashland, a 35-story, mixed-use tower from Two Trees Management that is offering 300 no-fee rentals. There are currently nine units available with studios starting at $2,850/month, one-bedrooms at $3,300/month and a single three-bedrooms from $5,750/month.

To coincide with the launch, the developer has published an official building website that brings a slew of new renderings, showing off TEN Arquitectos‘ perforated skin and the landscaped public plaza, as well as providing a first look inside the apartments.

SEE ALL THE RENDERINGS AND FIND OUT MORE HERE…

At the crossroads of Fort Greene, Downtown Brooklyn, and the BAM Cultural District, The Ashland rises. Next Tuesday, July 19, the 53-story, 586-unit tower will open its leasing office to prospective renters interested in its one-, two- and three-bedroom no-fee apartments, priced from $2,600/month for studios to $7,500/month for three-bedrooms. Previously, 282 apartments went online through the city’s affordable housing lottery.

To coincide with the grand opening, the Gotham Organization-developed and managed building has also launched its full website, providing us a bundle of new renderings of the exterior, the apartments, and the 17,000-square-foot marketplace that will open along its ground floor.

The tower is being designed by FXFOWLE with interiors by SPAN Architecture, who were also behind the interiors of Gotham’s Gotham West complex in Hell’s Kitchen. Handily resolving its heterogeneous context at the juncture of Brooklyn’s blossoming high-rise district and brownstone Fort Greene, the 563-foot-tall high-rise is clad in a variegated skin of rose and sandstone colored-brick, limestone, brushed metal, and glass, providing for a dynamic silhouette while alleviating some of the 580,000 square feet of bulk. According to FXFOWLE principal Gustavo Rodriguez, “We really wanted something that addressed different angles; every time you approach it you have a different sense of the building, in a way, performing to the different corners.”

Typical Living Room

The apartments begin on the fourth floor and almost all mid- and upper-floor units will offer terrific views of the cityscape. Newly released interior renderings show floor-to-ceiling windows, plank wood floors, granite countertops, Bosch dishwashers and stainless steel appliances. All homes are outfitted with central air and two- and three-bedroom units have a washer/dryer bundle.

53rd-floor resident lounge

Fitness center

The Ashland’s amenities include a 24-hour attended lobby, bike storage and stroller parking, a third-floor amenity terrace with adjoining fitness center, children’s play lab, resident lounge, demo kitchen, outdoor movie screening area and outdoor bar area. The 53nd floor rooftop “sunrise and sunset terraces” provide panoramic views of the growing skyline and are adjacent to a billiard room, screening room, outdoor lounge area and chaise lounge chairs.

The tower’s two-level podium will host lively new shops and offices for local cultural institutions. On the ground floor will be a sequel to the food hall of Gotham’s Hell’s Kitchen development. Also dubbed Gotham Market, the gastro-hub will be the first of its kind in the neighborhood and come complete with eight eating and drinking places, outdoor seating and a pop-up space with a rotating selection of chefs and restaurateurs.

The building already opened and closed its lottery for 282 middle-income apartments, for which it received over 82,262 applicants. The first tenants are set to move in on August 1st.

RELATED:

• Last Chance to Apply for 282 Middle-Income Apartments at Downtown Brooklyn’s 250 Ashland Place
• Downtown Brooklyn’s 300 Ashland Releases New Renderings to Kick Off No-Fee Leasing
• Leasing Begins at The Giovanni in Downtown Brooklyn, Rents From $2,379 Plus a Month Free
• Downtown Brooklyn’s Newly-Launched City Tower Offering One Month Free Rent

Renderings © FXFOWLE Architects

It’s been 14 years since Enrique Norten‘s ship-like design was chosen to sail upon a triangular site in an ambitious arts district planned for the area around the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Initially proposed as an eight-story glass building to house the Brooklyn Library for the Visual and Performing Arts, the project was altered to a mixed-use high-rise when Two Trees Management was brought onboard during the economic downturn in 2008.

Now officially known as 300 Ashland Place, the slab-shaped tower is a silvery 32-story icon that architecture critic Carter Horsley praises as a “gleaming, but mysterious steed” in the emerging Downtown Brooklyn skyline. It will house a smattering of public uses in addition to 379 apartments above. Earlier this July, leasing began on the 300 market-rate apartments that go for roughly $2,850/month for studios, $3,600/month for one-bedrooms and $5,750/month for two-bedrooms. And now, a housing lottery has launched for the 76 affordable units that include $889/month studios, $949/month one-bedrooms, and $1,087/month two-bedrooms.

300 Ashland offers expansive windows, affording residents light-filled apartments with far-reaching view over the city. Units also feature built-out closets, pre-installed blackout shades, washer/dryer bundles, in-sink garbage disposals, and keyless entry.

The pet-friendly building has an attended lobby, 24-hour concierge, a fitness center, a resident lounge, on-site parking, a bike room and a sun-deck designed by James Corner Field Operations. The podium of the tower will front a 20,000-square-foot public plaza. Inside the base will be a branch of the Brooklyn Public Library, BAM’s Hamm Archives Center, and 651 ARTS.

Qualifying New Yorkers can apply for the affordable units at 300 Ashland until September 19, 2016. Residents of Brooklyn Community Board 2 will be given preference for 50% of the units. Complete details on how to apply are available here (pdf). Questions regarding this offer must be referred to NYC’s Housing Connect department by dialing 311.

Use 6sqft’s map below to find even more ongoing housing lotteries.

If you don’t qualify for the housing lotteries mentioned, visit CityRealty’s no-fee rentals page for other apartment deals in the city. You can also view 300 Ashland’s market-rate listings here.

RELATED:

• Downtown Brooklyn’s 300 Ashland Releases New Renderings to Kick Off No-Fee Leasing
• FXFOWLE’s The Ashland Kicks Off Leasing With New Renderings of Apartments and Food Hall
• Downtown Brooklyn’s Newly-Launched City Tower Offering One Month Free Rent

Back in 2007, a run-of-the-mill row of three- to four-story walk-up buildings bounded by Willoughby, Bridge and Duffield Streets was ordered to vacate to make way for a soaring mixed-use skyscraper developed by AvalonBay Communities. Without warning, shopkeepers were given between 30 and 120 days to clear out or face court eviction, evidence of the impact of gentrification on Downtown Brooklyn. The district’s 2004 rezoning sparked the development of thousands of new apartments (6,400 in the pipeline according to our latest count) and is finally getting a dusting of office space too.

Now, after an arduous, decade-long journey of assembling an 11-parcel site, clearing and excavating it, and throwing up nearly one million square feet into the air, Avalon has finally finished construction and has kicked off leasing of the building’s upper collection of homes called Avalon Willoughby Place.

Standing 634 feet tall, the building now holds the title of tallest building in Brooklyn and is some 120 feet taller than Williamsburg Savings Bank Tower that held the title for 80 years until 2009. But JDS Development’s 9 DeKalb, planned next to the iconic Junior’s restaurant will be almost 500 feet taller when it opens in 2019. For a short time, the building will have the highest apartments in the city outside of Manhattan until another mega-rental called Tower 28 opens in Long Island City.

Avalon Willoughby Place at 214 Duffield Street is the skyscraper’s higher-end set of rentals and occupies floors 31-58 of the floor building. Below is its counterpart AVA DoBro, which commenced leasing on its 500 units in October 2015 and has a separate entrance at 100 Willoughby Street. This latest collection of homes is comprised of 326 upscale rental residences ranging from 400-square-foot studios priced from $2,610/month up to 1,513-square-foot three-bedrooms starting from $7,245/month. CETRA/Ruddy, the designers behind Walker Tower and One Madison, are the interior architects, and homes feature floor-to-ceiling windows, in-unit washer/dryers, hard-surface plank flooring, and sweeping skyline views. Modern kitchens offer stainless steel GE appliances, quartz-stone countertops, and Marazzi tile backsplashes. The tower’s top five floors, currently the highest residential floors outside of Manhattan, house Avalon’s Signature Collection of penthouses which are enhanced with upgraded appliances and fixtures, wine centers, recessed lighting, and exclusive service offerings.

Photos of the tower from last year while still under construction

The 826-unit high-rise was designed by SLCE Architects who managed to organize the building’s immense amount of square footage (nearly 900,000 square feet in all) into a palatable, two-tiered slab massing. The tower is sheathed in a complex but animated glass skin of various shades of blue and white panes that mollify its mass and make the building nearly impossible to comprehend from any single angle.

L to R: Fitness Center, Rooftop Dog Run

It’s anticipated to receive a LEED Silver rating and features its own subway entrance that provides direct access to the A, C, F, and R trains below. Additionally, residents of Avalon Willoughby Place will have access to a host of unique amenities, such as an enchanted forest-themed children’s playroom, a rooftop deck with indoor and outdoor lounge areas, dog parks divided for breeds of different sizes, a pet spa with JOG A DOG treadmill, and private dining room with demonstration kitchen.

Find listings for Avalon Willoughby Place and Ava DoBro at CityRealty and Avalon’s official leasing website.

To see more newly complete no-fee rental buildings in NYC or properties offering rental concessions see our map below or visit CityRealty’s page here.

RELATED:

• Skyline Wars: Brooklyn Enters the Supertall Race
• Downtown Brooklyn’s 300 Ashland Releases New Renderings to Kick Off No-Fee Leasing
• Friday Five: 5 Buildings in the Heart of Brooklyn Offering Free Rent

In April, initial details were released about Downtown Brooklyn‘s Macy’s $100 million interior makeover, which included new columns, fluted ceilings, metal and glass entrance canopies, and video screens surrounding the escalators. This came after Tishman Speyer inked a $170 million deal with the department store in January, in which they’ll remodel the 11-story Art Deco building’s top five floors into offices. As part of the deal, Tishman also took control of the connecting Hoyt Street parking garage, a site that was speculated may give way to a supertall, mixed-use tower. Today, CityRealty.com posted a set of renderings from architecture firm LEESER showing a glassy tower rising from the existing department store. Although it is not the design being considered by Tishman Speyer, it does give us a taste of the type of modern development that could climb from the coveted DoBro address.

The current site via Google Maps

For the Fulton Street site, the LESSER devised a 910-foot, 80-story tower that would rise atop the 1865 Macy’s building, along with two glassy 390-foot high rises for the garage site. The 1.2 million-square-foot main tower would have 230 condos and 468 rentals, while the towers to the east would have 248 condos, 308 rentals, 200,000 square feet of retail space, and a public plaza.

LESSER’s design would preserve Macy’s existing Art Deco-style facade and allow the store to remain open during construction, which would have been welcome news considering the company recently announced it will be closing 100 of its 675 department stores across the country.

Officially, work on the existing structure is expected to be completed by the fall of 2018; no word yet on what the design to follow will be.

EDITOR’S NOTE: A previous version of this story incorrectly reported that LESSER’s design was chosen for the Macy’s site. Reps for Tishman Speyer have informed us that this design was not commissioned by the development team, nor is it being considered.

[Via CityRealty.com]

RELATED:

• Brooklyn’s Tallest Tower Finishes Construction and Commences Leasing
• FXFOWLE’s The Ashland Kicks Off Leasing With New Renderings of Apartments and Food Hall
• REVEALED: First Look at Downtown Brooklyn’s New Office Tower at 540 Fulton Street

All renderings courtesy of LEESER

Google Earth rendering of the new residential buildings going up in Downtown Brooklyn, via CityRealty.com

This time last year, 6sqft shared a report from CityRealty.com that detailed how Northern Brooklyn would be getting a staggering 22,000 new apartments over the next four years, with the majority, 29 percent or roughly 6,500 apartments, headed for Downtown Brooklyn. The trend has kept up, as the Times reports today that this number of units is concentrated among “19 residential towers either under construction or recently completed along the 10-block section of Flatbush stretching from Barclays Center north to Myrtle Avenue.” Another 1,000 units are coming to four buildings on Myrtle Avenue, and all of these are overwhelmingly rentals. In fact, 20 percent of the entire city’s rentals that will become available this year and next are in the neighborhood. But many believe this rental boom is fast approaching a glut that will cause prices to soften in a saturated market.

7 DeKalb Avenue

The boom can be attributed to several factors, one of which is the 2004 rezoning of Downtown Brooklyn that encouraged new office tower and residential development. This took a while to gain speed, but it all changed once the city spearheaded a Downtown Brooklyn Cultural District centered around the Brooklyn Academy of Music and once the Barclays Center and surrounding Pacific Park took shape. There’s also the fact that this neighborhood has one of the largest transit hubs in the city, and it received much of the overflow of those priced out of Williamsburg.

The Ashland © FXFOWLE Architects

Already, some of the neighborhood’s largest developments are offering up rental concessions. At 7 DeKalb, a 23-story building above the City Point complex, the landlord is giving two months free rent for 14-month leases and free use of the gym and other amenities for a year. And at The Ashland, a 53-story, 586-unit tower near BAM with a ground-floor food hall and slew of other amenities, there’s an offer for one or two months of free rent depending on the lease length. Other buildings providing similar deals include 300 Ashland (no fees), The Giovanni (a month free), and City Tower (also a month free). Gabby Warshawer, CityRealty.com’s director of research, noted that this trend is “pretty astonishing.” She said, “Clearly there’s a lot of supply right now. We’re seeing longer lease terms, which is fairly new. And months of free rent.”

300 Ashland © TEN Arquitectos

In terms of the glut, Jonathan J. Miller, president of real estate appraisal and consulting firm Miller Samuel, explains that the issue is “too many units skewed to the upper end of the market,” meaning those above $3,500 a month. “The top of the market is soft for both rentals and condos. That’s where the bulk of the new supply is coming.” When he studied Brooklyn rents, he found that median rents for entry-level apartments jumped 50 percent to $2,481 from 2009 to 2016, but the high-end market fell four percent to $4,783.

[Via NYT]

RELATED:

• 22,000 New Apartments Coming to Northern Brooklyn by 2019
• Friday Five: 5 Buildings in the Heart of Brooklyn Offering Free Rent
• Brooklyn’s Tallest Tower Finishes Construction and Commences Leasing