Williamsburg and Greenpoint Redevelopment Plan

[NIMBYkiller]

I think Water Taxi service has recently begun

[krulltime]

Billburg Condo Plan Dealt a Blow


The Austin, Nichols & Co. Warehouse on the Williamsburg waterfront

Matthew Grace
09-21-2005

The Landmarks Preservation Commission designated the Austin, Nichols & Co. Warehouse at 184 Kent Avenue in Williamsburg a landmark yesterday. The building sits smack on the East River, making it a distinctive part of the Brooklyn skyline when viewed from Manhattan. The six-story building, built in 1915 and designed by Cass Gilbert, was used to process and package many types of food, from dried fruit and coffee to peanut butter for Sunbeam Foods.

According to the L.P.C. press release, buildings like this--with exposed concrete elevations sloping inward and crowned by flared cornices, it's an example of the Egyptian Revival style!--influenced Le Corbusier and his remarkable Radiant City designs (see Matthew Schuerman's article in The Observer this week for a discussion of Corbusier's influence in New York City; also, check out Michael Calderone's rundown on the Williamsburg real-estate scene).

It remains to be seen how this will influence developer Louis Kestenbaum's plan to convert the building into 240 luxe condos. The L.P.C.'s designation will wreck havoc on his plans (by architect Karl Fischer, who's all over Billyburg) to enlarge the building's windows, add four additional floors, and insert a 80-by-20-foot open-air courtyard in the center of the 500,000-square-foot building, all by 2008 (we'll see about that).


copyright © 2005 the new york observer, L.P.

[brianac]

Green light for park as plant plan dies

BY RACHEL MONAHAN
DAILY NEWS WRITER
Friday, March 21st 2008, 4:00 AM

A planned 28-acre park on the Greenpoint-Williamsburg waterfront will move forward now that the state has rejected a long-standing proposal for a power plant on the same site.

Though TransGas Energy Systems officials plan to review their legal options, community advocates and leaders cheered the plan's demise for making the creation of Bushwick Inlet Park possible.

"Finally, we can move on and [build] a world-class park," said Evan Thies of the community group Neighbors Allied for Good Growth. "The state listened to the community and rid us of this awful proposal once and for all."

TransGas had proposed a 1,100-megawatt power plant in 2002, revising that plan twice. The proposals were rejected by the state's Board on Electric Generation Siting and the Environment, which determined the project was "not in the public interest."

"To build a power plant in an area that already has more than its fair share of pollution and industry and to do it in the place of open space would be a travesty and a betrayal," said Assemblyman Joe Lentol (D-Greenpoint).

But TransGas' lawyer John Dax said officials were surprised by Thursday's actions.

"The state has set lofty goals for greenhouse gas reduction and has real concerns for [creating] power plants within the city," Dax said.

"It would seem to be incompatible with those goals to be denying a permit to a state-of-the-art clean power plant."

Copyright 2008 The New York Daily News.

[brianac]

Williamsburg
When Spring Cleaning Includes a Power Plant

By JAKE MOONEY
Published: May 4, 2008

THE gigantic old power plant at 500 Kent Avenue, next to the Brooklyn Navy Yard in South Williamsburg, has stood on the waterfront since 1905, generating power for the trains and streetcars of the Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company.

Archive of Industry
“It is quite literally throwing this building into the garbage,” says a preservationist.

The plant operated through the borough’s heyday as a leading manufacturing center. And though it closed in 1999 after 49 years as a Con Edison plant, the building remained standing as some of its industrial neighbors were designated landmarks and earmarked for conversion into housing, like part of the former Domino sugar factory. Others, such as the old Schaefer Beer factory, were demolished to make way for new construction.

Now, the power station’s time may have come. A week and a half ago, Con Edison representatives confirmed neighborhood suspicions that the building was being torn down, though Bob McGee, a company spokesman, said no future use had been determined for the site, including whether to sell it.

News of the demolition, which dismayed preservationists who still hope to see the building reused, trickled out awkwardly: In a March 12 posting on a neighborhood blog called “I’m not sayin, I’m just sayin,” a Con Edison spokesman was quoted dismissing the demolition option, telling the site’s anonymous author that workers seen on the site were “just doing some spring cleaning.” Five weeks later, the same spokesman told AM New York that the building was indeed being dismantled.

Lisa Kersavage, director of advocacy and policy for the Municipal Art Society of New York, called the Kent Avenue plant “a very striking presence on the waterfront.” From an environmental point of view, she said, reuse would be the best option.

Ms. Kersavage speculated that the plant could become an incubator for small manufacturers like the Greenpoint Manufacturing and Design Center, which is housed in an old factory. Or, she said, it could be used for residences, or for a cultural institution.

“It doesn’t sound like those actions have been explored, so I think they should pause before they do any more spring cleaning or whatever, to really investigate the adaptive reuse possibilities here,” Ms. Kersavage said.

And she added: “It’s just so incredibly wasteful. It is quite literally throwing this building into the garbage.”

But Evan Thies, a candidate for City Council and chairman of the environmental committee of Community Board 2, said he had been told that past attempts to sell the building had fallen through because of extensive contamination, both outside the building and inside, where there are lead paint, heavy machinery and asbestos baked onto the brick walls.

Mr. Thies said he thought the land should be devoted to housing or open space, which, he said, the neighborhood badly needs. “It is eminently possible to, in some areas, preserve the valuable history of the neighborhood,” Mr. Thies said. “But there are also some areas where you are essentially deciding between progress and waste.”


http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/04/ny...ml?ref=thecity

Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company

[JCMAN320]

^^ That is a dreadful shame, thank god we here in Jersey City are going to save and reuse ours.

[Merry]

Greenpoint Rising

Developer proposes Pelli-designed towers for North Brooklyn waterfront


Jonathan Bernstein has proposed a new condo project for the far reaches of Greenpoint designed by Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects.
Courtesy Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects.

When the neighborhoods of Williamsburg and Greenpoint were rezoned in 2005, a parade of luxury condominium towers were expected to replace moribund factories and warehouses along the North Brooklyn waterfront. Few of those towers materialized before the collapse of the real estate market, though, and with thousands of apartments already under construction in the area—and many sitting empty—it could be years before developers renew their march to the water.

The towers seen from the water.







But this is New York City, where developers never cease to dream. And so, up in the far reaches of Greenpoint, first-time developer Jonathan Bernstein is plotting what would be the tallest tower on the waterfront—nearly 20 percent taller than current zoning allows—making it among the most audacious projects in the borough to date.

Located two blocks from the last G-train stop before Queens, the project is being designed by marquee firm Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects. Adjacent streets would be transformed into parkland. Piers would be built to accommodate historic ships, ferries, and Water Taxi service. A new beach would offer sorely needed waterfront access. And all of these perks would help blunt community concerns about the project’s blockbuster proportions.
So far, the plan seems to be working.

“It’s a beautiful project with a hard sell,” Ward Dennis, chair of local Community Board 1’s land-use committee, said in an interview. “What the community needs to decide is where that balance is between density and open space and affordable housing. And really, that’s what all of these projects come down to.”

For a 100,000-square-foot lot on India Street currently occupied by a warehouse, Bernstein—who was once Donald Trump’s personal attorney—is proposing two muscular glass towers, one rising to 470 feet, the other to 200 feet. As with all new projects on the North Brooklyn waterfront, the towers are surrounded by a base of more contextual row buildings that rise no higher than 65 feet. And the project is not only taller than zoning allows but also bigger, containing roughly 890,000 square feet, as opposed to the 660,000 square feet potentially allowed as of right.

“We are asking for radical changes to the zoning, but we do think it’s way different than anything that’s been proposed on the waterfront,” Bernstein said during an informal presentation to the community board’s land-use committee last week. “We think it will be a gateway to Manhattan and Greenpoint.”

Bernstein has employed some clever zoning tactics to make his radical moves. Under the 2005 rezoning, the most a developer could expect to build would be two towers, one at 400 feet, the other at 300 feet. More typically, buildings top out in the range of 300 feet and 150 feet, as is the case at the Edge condominiums further to the south. So far, no building has even reached 400 feet, though a third tower at Northside Piers is planned for that height.

Even more unorthodox is Bernstein’s proposal to demap all of neighboring India Street and part of Java Street. Bernstein wants to turn these streets into parkland that connects with a larger-than-required park on the waterfront, replete with an amphitheater, sand dunes, and wetlands designed by W Architecture and Landscape Architecture. By incorporating thousands of square feet from the roadbeds into his project, Bernstein would significantly increase the project’s density, and hence the tower’s permitted height.

Bernstein said he must build big in order to afford his project, citing the expense of creating required public amenities, even arguing that zoning restrictions are one of the main reasons the waterfront remains under-developed. “We have to pay for these things,” Bernstein said. “We’re trying to create something that is good for the community and yet financially feasible.”

While the tower would be an eye-popper for such a lowrise neighborhood, it would not be the first in the area to exceed zoning restrictions. This spring, 155 West Street, an Ishmael Leyva–designed project proposed for a site directly north of Bernstein’s, won approval to rise to 400 feet, instead of a permitted 300 feet.

On that site, however, a sewer easement prevented the developer from building out the entire lot. Instead of a 300-foot tower and a 150-foot tower as of right, the two were combined into a single, 400-foot tower, plus a $2 million waterfront park. Moreover, in this case the developer was simply shifting density, unlike Bernstein, who is seeking to increase it.

Bernstein has yet to seek the numerous city approvals it would take to realize the project, including permission from the city planning, transportation, and parks departments, and one of his associates emphasized that specifics could still change ahead of public review.

Bernstein said he has spoken with these agencies, though, and that they’ve expressed enthusiasm for the project. (He has even signed a contract with the city’s Economic Development Corporation to serve as the Greenpoint stop in an East River ferry service program.) Representatives of the agencies did confirm such meetings to AN, but said it was premature to make any judgments before a formal public review.

Elected officials, including local Assemblyman Joseph Lentol and Brooklyn Democratic Party chairman Vito Lopez, have expressed reservations. A Lopez spokesperson said that he is particularly uncomfortable with the project’s height: “He’s against anything that’s not contextual with the neighborhood, especially a 45-story tower.”

Some in the community believe this opposition is why Bernstein has come to them first, seeking their support ahead of a formal public review expected in the next few months. And despite reservations about the project, locals have been keeping an open mind, such as Christine Holowacz, co-chair of the Greenpoint Waterfront Association for Parks and Planning. “I love the open space on the project,” Holowacz told AN. “I’m not so sure about the tall towers.”

http://archpaper.com/e-board_rev.asp?News_ID=4002

http://curbed.com/archives/2009/11/0...front_plan.php