DUMBO Development

[lofter1]

... Do you really think the site will remain a parking lot?

I don't understand why the general discussion has now apparently agreed that the site is "a parking lot" when little if any of it is currently in use as such.

And of course St. Ann's can move -- they're ready to and will.

But please don't use the "it's now nothing but a parking lot" argument when it ain't so.

[ZippyTheChimp]

Just sarcasm about the lost parking in the area.

[BrooklynRider]

Yes, it is. Two thirds of the frontage on Front Street is parking and its depth goes to the back of St. Ann's Warehouse on the north and the edge of the site on the east.

1.
http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/dd121/BrooklynRiderRob/th_DSCN0878.jpg (http://s220.photobucket.com/albums/dd121/BrooklynRiderRob/?action=view&current=DSCN0878.jpg)

2.
http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/dd121/BrooklynRiderRob/th_DSCN0885.jpg (http://s220.photobucket.com/albums/dd121/BrooklynRiderRob/?action=view&current=DSCN0885.jpg)


3.
http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/dd121/BrooklynRiderRob/th_DSCN0884.jpg (http://s220.photobucket.com/albums/dd121/BrooklynRiderRob/?action=view&current=DSCN0884.jpg)

4.
http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/dd121/BrooklynRiderRob/th_DSCN0883.jpg (http://s220.photobucket.com/albums/dd121/BrooklynRiderRob/?action=view&current=DSCN0883.jpg)

[lofter1]

OK, so that would mean that ~ 1/4 of the site is currently a parking lot (which somewhat corresponds with the map shown in BR's post #247)?

[ZippyTheChimp]

What I was referring to - the terraced progression of buildings from the bridge walkway.

http://img30.imageshack.us/img30/6343/dumbo60.th.jpg (http://img30.imageshack.us/my.php?image=dumbo60.jpg)

[BrooklynRider]

Council Committee Approves Dock Street Project
By Ben Muessig
The Brooklyn Paper

A key City Council committee this afternoon backed — by a surprisingly wide margin — DUMBO developer Jed Walentas’s controversial bid to build a 17-story tower next to the Brooklyn Bridge, hours after Speaker Christine Quinn reportedly had given her OK.

The Council’s land-use committee voted 17–4 to support Walentas’s request for a rezoning on his Dock Street site so that he could build a 300-unit tower — which includes a public middle school and scores of units set aside as below-market-rate rentals — a project that opponents claim will forever damage views of the historic and landmarked span.

“I have to vote yes … because it’s in the best interest of the community overall,” said Councilmember Robert Jackson (D–Manhattan), speaking for many on the panel.

The support for the project came on the heels of a fiery committee hearing last week, at which several councilmembers slammed the city’s school building agency over internal e-mails that cast doubt about whether or not the city actually considered other sites for a public middle school.

At that hearing, Councilman Eric Gioia (D-Queens) said called one of the e-mails “the most disturbing document that I have seen in my eight years in Council,” he said.

Gioia hammered this point on Thursday afternoon, reminding his fellow committee members of the e-mail in question, denying that the missive could be understood in the larger context.

“Unless the next e-mail was, ‘Just kidding,’ I don’t know what would put that in context,” he said.

But Gioia — joined by Councilmembers Charles Barron (D–Canarsie), John Liu (D–Queens) and Tony Avella (D–Queens) — lost the larger battle to the other committee members, who did insert rare language into the rezoning that requires Walentas to make good on his promise of the middle school and the affordable units.

That addendum to the bill did not satisfy Avella.

“I am thoroughly disgusted,” he said, his face reddening like a cartoon tea-kettle.

“People are going to go by and say, ‘Who the heck allowed this building to get built?’ The Brooklyn Bridge is a national treasure. It should be protected — that is the bottom line.”

Longtime project foe Councilman David Yassky (D–Brooklyn Heights) echoed Avella’s point about the view, but continued to stress his belief that the city could get a better deal for a middle school from a different developer.

“It is clear that there are plenty of other places to build a school in [Downtown Brooklyn],” said Yassky, who task force has proposed many locations — including inside the soon-to-reopen Brooklyn House of Detention — all of which have been shot down by the School Construction Authority.

On Thursday, Walentas said he was “pleased” by the committee vote.

“It’s a great project,” he added. “We have worked hard to demonstrate that Dock Street DUMBO will be a thoughtful, contextual, positive addition to the neighborhood [that will] provide the community with a new middle school and DUMBO’s first-ever affordable housing, all in an environmentally friendly green building that respects the surrounding neighborhood and its historic character.”

The committee vote in support of the project was a rare instance when a council committee opted not to defer to the wishes of the local member, in this case, project opponent Yassky.

It would be equally rare if the full Council, which is expected to vote on the development next week, overturns such an overwhelming committee vote.

The Council approval — which the New York Observer reported on Thursday is nearly a sure thing, thanks to Quinn’s support — is the final hurdle in Walentas’s hunt for a zoning resolution that would allow him to build residential apartments on a site currently reserved for manufacturing or hotels.

Borough President Markowitz (who called for a taller and thinner building) and the City Planning Commission (which suggested a slightly shorter building with other minor alternations), have already approved the rezoning.

The Planning Commission version is the one on which the Council committee voted on Thursday.

Opponents have rallied repeatedly and compiled a list of celebrities, such as Ken Burns, Gabriel Byrne, Helen Hunt, Gary Sinise and David McCullough who object to the project.

A review by The Brooklyn Paper earlier this year revealed that very few public views of the bridge would be obscured by the tower.

But Gus Sheha, president of the DUMBO Neighborhood Alliance and an opponent of the project, was livid after the vote.

“It’s clear that this committee today sold the Brooklyn Bridge,” he said.

[BrooklynLove]

A key City Council committee this afternoon backed — by a surprisingly wide margin — DUMBO developer Jed Walentas’s controversial bid to build a 17-story tower next to the Brooklyn Bridge, hours after Speaker Christine Quinn reportedly had given her OK.

This is was surprising only to the small group opposing the project. And they still continue to spew rhetoric.

[ASchwarz]

That article is hilarious. And just because a project is "controversial" does not mean there is doubt it will get built. Every project in NY is "controversial". There is nothing one could propose that would not arouse some sort of opposition.

Tony Avella really is a cook. He makes Charles Barron sound like a distinguished statesman. The Brooklyn Bridge IS a national treasure, of course, but that means we should honor it by surrounding it with parking lots? How does a nearby school and housing sully a national treasure? Only parked SUVs properly honor this treasure?

No logic, as usual.

At least Avella is retiring from the Council. He barely won reelection, and his district is now heavily Asian (who don't exactly appreciate his anti-immigrant and anti-development stances), so he's retiring rather than running again.

[Merry]

Wow! Those clock windows are amazing.


No Need to Wear a Watch

By JOSH BARBANEL

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TIME waits for no man, certainly not during a real estate downturn in Brooklyn.

So despite the tumbling prices for trophy apartments, a striking triplex penthouse apartment in a clock tower overlooking the Brooklyn Bridge and New York Harbor has gone on the market for $25 million, more than double the highest price known to have been paid for a home in Brooklyn.

The main floor of the sleek modern apartment is dominated by four working clocks housed in four 14-foot-high round windows, which provide nearly unobstructed views (except for the clock faces) out to the four points of the compass.

The penthouse sits atop one of the tallest buildings in Dumbo, the cobblestoned neighborhood that in the 1980s sprang to life in a former industrial area between the Brooklyn and Manhattan Bridges.

The 3,000-square-foot main floor has an open living room, dining room and kitchen with 16-foot-high ceilings. A glass-walled elevator and a three-story floating staircase at the center of the space lead to smaller floors that narrow toward the top of the tower. There are three bedrooms on the 2,300-square-foot second floor (watch your head as you walk along the exterior walls), and on the floor above that, a 988-square-foot open loft with a 15-foot ceiling. Finally, up a narrow staircase at the very top of the building is a tiny windswept crow’s nest.

The apartment was created by David Walentas, the creator of the Dumbo neighborhood, in an old industrial building built by a cardboard box manufacturer. Mr. Walentas renamed the factory the ClockTower Building and converted it first into offices for the New York State Labor Department, and then, in 1998, into 124 condominiums.

Mr. Walentas kept an apartment in the building, where he lives with his wife, Jane, as well as the apartment with the clocks on the 16th floor. He negotiated a deal with the condominium board a few years ago to incorporate the tower space into the 16th-floor apartment.

The highest sale price on record for a home in Brooklyn was the $11 million sale of a house in 2006 in Gravesend, a center of the Syrian Jewish community, and the highest price paid for a condominium was the $7 million sale of a 14th-floor apartment at the ClockTower last year. That condo is now listed for sale at $8.5 million.

Mr. Walentas’s real estate company recently won approval to construct an 18-story building near the base of the Brooklyn Bridge over the objections of neighborhood residents, but Mr. Walentas said that the building would not affect the views from One Main Street, as the ClockTower is also known.

Mr. Walentas said the marketing of the ClockTower apartment was not timed to the fluctuations in the real estate market, because the apartment was a one-of-a-kind space that would appeal only to a one-of-a-kind buyer.

The buyer of the apartment need not worry about the nightmare of having four giant clocks each showing a different time. The four clocks are electronically synchronized to show exactly the same time, Mr. Walentas said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/09/realestate/09deal1.html?_r=1

[BrooklynLove]

That apartment is amazing but it's going to be a long long time before they find a buyer - even if there had not been an economic downturn.

[Alonzo-ny]

Jaw dropping.

[ablarc]

Do those clocks' works make any sound? Where are the works, anyway? Miniaturized in the hubs of the hands? And how do they keep them synchronized?

The hands seem to move in even one-minute increments; does that make a slight tock? Are the ratchets in each hub synchronized by radio waves?

[ZippyTheChimp]

Do those clocks' works make any sound?Hmmmm. Let me think.

Where are the works, anyway? Miniaturized in the hubs of the hands?Probably an electric motor. Maybe the hands are lightweight composite.

And how do they keep them synchronized?Master clock? GPS?

The hands seem to move in even one-minute increments; does that make a slight tock?Maybe the photographer is an obsessive-compulsive personality.

[BrooklynLove]

http://www.ny1.com/Default.aspx?ArID=103978

[Merry]

September 28, 2009

Development Watch: Inside 37 Bridge Street

http://www.brownstoner.com/brownstoner/archives/37-bridge-001.jpg

http://www.brownstoner.com/brownstoner/archives/37-bridge-001_restrict_width_72.jpg (http://www.brownstoner.com/brownstoner/archives/2009/09/inside_37_bridg.php?gallery1741Pic=1#gallery-1741) http://www.brownstoner.com/brownstoner/archives/37-bridge-002_restrict_width_72.jpg (http://www.brownstoner.com/brownstoner/archives/2009/09/inside_37_bridg.php?gallery1741Pic=2#gallery-1741) http://www.brownstoner.com/brownstoner/archives/37-bridge-003_restrict_width_72.jpg (http://www.brownstoner.com/brownstoner/archives/2009/09/inside_37_bridg.php?gallery1741Pic=3#gallery-1741) http://www.brownstoner.com/brownstoner/archives/37-bridge-004_restrict_width_72.jpg (http://www.brownstoner.com/brownstoner/archives/2009/09/inside_37_bridg.php?gallery1741Pic=4#gallery-1741) http://www.brownstoner.com/brownstoner/archives/37-bridge-005_restrict_width_72.jpg (http://www.brownstoner.com/brownstoner/archives/2009/09/inside_37_bridg.php?gallery1741Pic=5#gallery-1741)
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(click thumbnails to enlarge)

Last week we got to walk through the ongoing conversion project at 37-43 Bridge Street in Dumbo. The project is notable for its adaptive reuse of the existing six-story steel silos that remained at 37 Bridge Street from when it was a soap factory. As we saw last month in this video, the silos are being sliced up and, in some cases, repurposed to form the organizing design principal of new condominium. He catches enough crap from us and others for all the stuff he doesn't do right that we gotta give a big nod to Robert Scarano for being the architect of record on this one. (He didn't design it, but it was the brainchild of a former employee and he championed it.)

Anyway, in our opinion, the current design divides the apartments into way too many small bedrooms instead of letting to silos rule the day in larger, loftier spaces, but the approach and vision of the adaptive reuse is very laudable. In related news, the attached building at 43 Bridge Street (photos 8-10) is being turned into 3 townhouses. Also a cool idea.

Checking In at 37 Bridge Street (http://www.brownstoner.com/brownstoner/archives/2009/08/37_bridge_stree.php) [Brownstoner]
Development Watch: 37 Bridge Street (http://www.brownstoner.com/brownstoner/archives/2009/02/development_wat_358.php) [Brownstoner]

http://www.brownstoner.com/brownstoner/archives/2009/09/inside_37_bridg.php

[Merry]

Education Department architect concludes Dock Street in DUMBO was bad site for public school

BY Erin Durkin

September 30th 2009

http://assets.nydailynews.com/img/2009/09/30/alg_dumbo.jpg

A top Education Department architect concluded the controversial Dock Street project in DUMBO was a bad site for a public school, new documents show.

"The proposal would yield an extremely small school ... with premium costs due to the mixed use with the high-rise residential building," wrote School Construction Authority architect and engineer Bruce Barrett in an internal e-mail obtained by City Councilman David Yassky (D-DUMBO).

But the city picked the site anyway - and the promise of a new middle school became a key selling point used by developers Jed and David Walentas to get approval for the 18-story apartment tower, which opponents charge will block views of the Brooklyn Bridge.

The Council voted overwhelmingly to approve the project in June.

"We know now that Dock Street did not represent the best deal for city taxpayers and the future students in the district," Yassky said. "The developer of the Dock Street property was spewing false propaganda - is there any other kind? - about the proposed school's amenities, which fall far short of SCA's standards for public schools."

Two Trees, the Walentases' company, said that changes to the space were made after Barrett's 2007 e-mail to make it more suitable for a school. The developer increased ceiling heights, added a staircase and enlarged the lobby.
But the changes didn't add any additional space to the school, the Walentases have acknowledged.

"These 'new' ... documents are two years old, and in the intervening time Two Trees has undertaken negotiations with the SCA ... that [have] resulted in an even better school for the children of Brooklyn," said spokeswoman Barbara Wagner.

Barrett also found that putting the school in a manufacturing area would create "safety, environmental and noise impacts (trucks, traffic, pollution, etc.)," and that its closeness to the Brooklyn Bridge meant there wouldn't be much daylight or fresh air.

"As with most potential school sites in New York City, the Dock Street location presents some design challenges, but the fact remains that the city will receive the land, core and shell of the building at no cost, making it a great deal for New Yorkers," said Department of Education spokesman Will Havemann.

But Yassky charged the documents are further evidence the city bent over backward to accommodate the developer instead of giving fair consideration to other spots for a school.

"Shame on the SCA for completing a deal for a school that is apparently not suitable for the students it is supposed to serve ... as a result of the shocking lack of due diligence for alternative sites," he said.

http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/brooklyn/2009/09/30/2009-09-30_top_education_department_architect_concludes_.h tml

[BrooklynRider]

It might not have represented the "best" site for a school, but no one is mentioning all of the other options the story implies that they had to choose from.

[BrooklynLove]

This is just more of the same crap that made the opposition to this development so innefective in the first place. Also more of the typical crud that keeps Yassky in a meaningless political slot.

[Derek2k3]

My apologies if you don't like HDR.

The site for the school/tower is the parking lot w/ cars abutting the Bk Bridge.
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2080/3692685206_58008d43b4_b.jpg
JoshDerr (http://bighugelabs.com/onblack.php?id=3692685206&size=large)

[ZippyTheChimp]

http://www.emofaces.com/en/smilies/a/anonymous-smile.gif

[BrooklynLove]

The site for the school/tower is the parking lot w/ cars abutting the Bk Bridge.

The site is actually the parcels across the street closer toward the water.

[Meatslim]

is there a higher reseolution version of this? thanks :)

My apologies if you don't like HDR.

The site for the school/tower is the parking lot w/ cars abutting the Bk Bridge.
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2080/3692685206_58008d43b4_b.jpg
JoshDerr (http://bighugelabs.com/onblack.php?id=3692685206&size=large)

[Merry]

Walentas sued over slippery Dock docs

By Ben Muessig

Opponents of a planned high-rise near the foot of the Brooklyn Bridge in DUMBO sued to stop the project this week on the grounds that the city colluded with the developer and allowed him to expand the perimeter of his project site to take advantage of zoning perks.

The suit by the nascent DUMBO Neighborhood Foundation names the Department of City Planning, the City Planning Commission, the City Council, the Department of Education, and the School Construction Authority as guilty of improperly allowing the development company Two Trees Management to win a zoning change that paves the way for a planned 17-story project that includes a public middle school as a sweetener to seal the deal.

“There was a concerted effort to advance this project at any cost,” said Gus Sheha, a plaintiff in the case. “When you connect the dots, it’s apparent that people didn’t do their due diligence for a reason: they wanted to pass this.”

(http://www.brooklynbridgerealty.com/display.cgi?mode=display_property&id=2000) Coming just weeks after the release of documents revealing that the development’s promised middle school may have failed to meet city standards when the project was approved earlier this year, the suit alleges that the city officials “failed to fulfill their respective obligations to conduct a full, fair and objective examination of the appropriateness of including a middle school as part of the Dock Street Project as well as to conduct a full, fair and objective comparison of alternative middle school sites.”

“All evidence points towards a pattern of cooperation (if not collusion) between [the city] and Two Trees,” continued the complaint, which also cited the city’s flip flop over the need for a new middle school in the neighborhood.

The DUMBO group also accused the city of overlooking zoning regulations that could have halted developer Jed Walentas (pictured), whose project, opponents claim, will forever mar public views of the Brooklyn Bridge, though a Brooklyn Paper investigation revealed otherwise.

The group contends that Dock Street should not have qualified for as a “General Large Scale Development” — a jargony designation that gives developers of plots larger than 1-1/2 acres additional flexibility “in order to achieve a superior site plan.” But the key requirement is that all of the included plots are “designated as a tract, all of which is to be used, developed or enlarged as a unit.”

The suit claims that in order to reach the 1-1/2–acre threshold, Two Trees included properties that it doesn’t intend to raze — namely, a parcel across the street that currently houses the beloved Galapagos Art Space.

“The Galapagos Art Space is not contiguous and it’s not coming down, so it is not contributing to the new development,” said Sheha.

The suit goes on to contend that if the Galapagos plot — which is within 800 feet of the waterfront — is considered part of the Dock Street development, then the entire project should have been forced to comply with “waterfront block” regulations, which were not studied throughout the city’s land use review.

Two Trees claimed the suit was bunk.

“We complied with all of the legal and environmental requirements and properly obtained all necessary approvals from the city,” the company said in a statement.

http://www.brooklynpaper.com/stories/32/41/32_41_bm_dock_st_suit.html

[Merry]

Dumbo Art Space St. Ann’s Mulls Manhattan Move

October 19, 2009

On Oct. 9, at St. Ann’s Warehouse in Dumbo, Rosanne Cash sang songs her father, Johnny, recommended she learn 36 years ago, in a concert marking the venue’s 30 years of existence. Ms. Cash also performed there in 2006. If she reappears in another three years, she will return to a venue in an entirely new location. Maybe even in Manhattan.

St. Ann’s Warehouse, the art space that has paid precisely $0 in rent since it moved into the Walentases’ 38 Water Street in 2001, is moving.

“We’d love to stay in Dumbo,” said Susan Feldman, the Warehouse’s president and artistic director. “We would love to be able to stay in Brooklyn, but we’re also going to look in Manhattan.”

St. Ann’s is being displaced by the Walentases’ controversial 17-story Dock Street residential development, which the city finally approved in June over howls of protest from some neighbors, who, despite the developer’s inclusion of a middle school, deplore the building’s height and proximity to the Brooklyn Bridge. (This month, those neighbors filed a lawsuit against the city for approving the development.)

One person the Dock Street project is not controversial with is Ms. Feldman, despite its role in her displacement. After all, when St. Ann’s first relocated to Dumbo from Brooklyn Heights in ’01, it was only planning on staying nine months. Thanks to what Ms. Feldman called the Walentases’ “enlightened development” practices, her organization has been allowed to stay on rent-free.

“The Walentases are working with us to find a space,” Ms. Feldman told The Commercial Observer. “We always knew that at some point it was going to be developed. So they’re helping us move, and they’ll support us in our move, and it’s friendly.”

Ms. Feldman has hired nonprofit specialist Paul Wolf, of Denham Wolf Real Estate Services, to scout out about 15,000 square feet of space, which, in an otherwise exceedingly tenant-friendly market, is more difficult than it might seem, given the Warehouse’s unusual space needs. Requirement No. 1: 25-foot ceilings. Requirement No. 2: columns spaced as close to 50 feet apart as possible.

Worst comes to worst, the Warehouse could buy a development site and put up a second incarnation of its current digs
.
“The building we’re in right now is fairly inexpensive to build,” Ms. Feldman pointed out. “It’s just a cinder block building.”

http://www.observer.com/2009/real-estate/dumbo-art-space-st-ann%E2%80%99s-mulls-manhattan-move#