J Condo - 100 Jay Street - DUMBO - by Gruzen Samton
City Green Lights 330,000-SF DUMBO Project
By Glen Thompson (GLOBE ST)
Last updated: Feb 11, 2002 *08:42AM
NEW YORK CITY-A major mixed-use project slated for DUMBO (Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass) has received the city approvals required to move the development forward. Dubbed Light Bridges, the development is a 330,000-sf condominium/retail property.
Located in the industrial-chic Brooklyn neighborhood sandwiched between the Manhattan and Brooklyn Bridges, Light Bridges is being developed by a partnership of Brooklyn-based Cara Development and Jeffrey M. Brown Associates.
“We’ve been doing business in DUMBO for many years, and we love the area,” said Charlie Cara, President of Cara Development. “We’re thrilled to be able to bring quality housing and visionary architecture to downtown Brooklyn.”
The property will include between 135 and 170 luxury condominiums on top of commercial and retail space. Architectural firm Shop/Sharples Holden Pasquarelli is designing the building, which will be situated on a 35,000-sf site along the Brooklyn waterfront.
The building will have a four-floor retail and commercial base supporting two 20-story apartment towers. The property also will feature parking for 280 vehicles, replacing the number of spaces currently on the site and adding adequate parking for tenants.
The architects on the project have collaborated with DUMBO residents throughout the design phase of the building, resulting in a plan that blends contextually with the neighborhood while satisfying the developer's needs. “It’s a unique example of how an architect and a developer can work well with the local community,” said architect Greg Pasquarelli. “We met on numerous occasions with neighbors here in DUMBO, and we have implemented many of their suggestions.”
Jeffrey M. Brown Associates has served as construction manager, general contractor and consultant for a variety corporations, institutions, and developers since 1984. Its projects include Plaza 4A of the Harborside Financial Center in Jersey City, NJ; Federal Express City Station in Manhattan; and Host Marriott World Trade Center.
Cara Development has been doing residential restoration projects in downtown and brownstone Brooklyn for more than 50 years. The developer has restored numerous historic buildings in the area and has completed two loft conversions in DUMBO in the last 10 years.
The DUMBO area and the Manhattan Bridge.
City Green Lights 330,000-SF DUMBO Project
there has been an immens amount of nimby-ism around here about this tower...i believe it was shortened???
Nope, redesigned and enlarged. Now the J Condo at 31 floors and 331 ft.
That building looks great. Almost like the Gehry in Prague, with the torqueing going on and such.
O yes, mybad, i was thinking about the Walentas building that was near the BK bridge. This building looks awsome, does anyone know when construction will start?
In fact, i think i just might go down there given the fact that i live in the area. Anyone know the adress and cross streets?
100 Jay Street at York Street. Construction supposed to be starting any day now.
Good look, i think i might just check it out when A) it gets warmer, B) when i have a day off from school
Im so glad...this is right near me
100 Jay St.
J Condo
100 Jay Street
31/33 stories 337 feet
Gruzen Samton Architects
Dev-Hudson Companies Incorporated
Residential Condominiums
260/267 units 407,129 Sq. Ft.
Proposed 2005-2006
A post on this project is here. http://www.wirednewyork.com/forum/sh...8&page=2&pp=15
I really like the J Condo...any idea if its near approval?
Originally posted by NYGuy at SP.
BROOKLYN PAPERS
DUMBO’S TALLEST BUILDING
Giant planned for Jay Street sparks debate
A rendering of 100 Jay St. depicts a 33 story tower.
By Jess Wisloski
The Brooklyn Papers
The groundbreaking this week for a new high-rise condominium at 100 Jay St. has re-ignited concern about what will be built there.
Last Monday, bulldozers took to the site — formerly occupied by an outdoor parking lot and bounded by Pearl, York, Front and Jay streets — tearing up pavement and gouging a hole for the foundation of what is being called the J Condo. At 33 stories, it would be the tallest building in DUMBO.
But unlike other big development projects in the predominantly low-rise former manufacturing district, the rezoning the city granted to the developer of the J Condo site was for a very different, and much shorter, project.
That project, called “Light Bridges” by developer Cara Development, would have built twin 18-story buildings joined by a common two-story base with an interior courtyard. The twisting, triangular glass-and-steel design also called for ground-floor retail. That plan required a zoning change to allow the residential and retail uses in the manufacturing district. With approval from Community Board 2, the borough president and the City Planning Commission, the City Council in January 2002 approved the site-specific zoning change.
The 18-story building would have stood 200 feet tall, with 375,000 square feet of space.
The state Department of Environmental Conservation, which reviewed the project’s environmental impact statement, said it “will not have a significant adverse environmental impact.”
Light Bridges, however, never saw the light of day.
The J Condo, also being built by Cara Development, will stand 337 feet tall, with 267 one- to three-bedroom condo apartments with just over 407,000 square feet of space in total, and ground-floor retail.
J Condo marketers tout its being the tallest building in DUMBO and adding an “easily recognizable icon to the Brooklyn skyline with its dramatic, curved, sail-like facade of floor-to-ceiling windows,” according to an advertisement on the Web site of the building’s managing agent, The Hudson Companies Inc.
Repeated calls to the property’s owner, Charles Cara, were not returned, and neither were calls to The Hudson Companies.
The city’s Department of City Planning, however, said all the changes to the plans were legitimate, and would not require any further review by the city in the urban land use review process (ULURP).
“The short answer is that the 100 Jay St. project was approved by the City Planning Commission,” said Rachaele Raynoff, spokeswoman for the Department of City Planning.
“Developers changed. New developers are building as-of-right,” she said, explaining that the application that passed the city’s Uniform Land Use Review Procedure (ULURP) rezoned the site from manufacturing (M1-5) to high-rise residential (R9-1), meaning that the building would be capped at a 280-foot height with an additional 40-foot-tall tower allowed at the top, set back from the building’s edge.
“The CPC and Council approved [this] rezoning,” Raynoff said. And even though the new project features a different design and additional 10 stories, Raynoff said it would not need to be re-submitted for review, even though it is 17 feet taller than the limits she cited.
“A development pursuant to that zoning does not require another ULURP or EIS. If the 100 Jay St. plan did not comply, [the Department of Buildings] would have indicated that further review was necessary,” she said.
“We have no complaints on record, that says something as well,” said Buildings Department spokeswoman Jennifer Givner. “Normally, when the community has a problem with something being overbuilt they call in and complain, but on record, we have nothing to date.
“We have the ability to issue something called a reconsideration that basically only comes form the top advisors that say something like you can’t do ‘X’, but you can do ‘X’ if you do something else that makes it just as safe,” she said.
A principal at Gruzen Samton, the architecture firm designing the J Condo, referred a reporter’s questions to Cara Development.
What makes J Condo an oddity is not only the height, but the seeming bait-and-switch pulled by the developer to obtain the rezoning based on a shorter project, which in turn set a precedent that may facilate other large-scale developments in DUMBO and Vinegar Hill.
DUMBO’s look as a turn-of-the-century city by the sea between the Brooklyn and Manhattan bridges has over the past year or so given way to more Manhattan-esque development.
Developer Shaya Boymelgreen has two high-rise apartment buildings under construction, the 11-story Beacon Tower luxury condominium at 84 Front St. and a 23-story residence at 85 Adams St., on the other side of the Manhattan Bridge overpass from the J Condo site.
“That went through because quite honestly there was a sort of naivete of the community members involved,” said Marcia Hillis, a DUMBO resident who reviewed the Light Bridges project as a member of the CB2 Land Use committee, noting that the community board got the application for review just a month after the tragedy of Sept. 11, 2001. She said most members probably didn’t think that by approving the R9 zoning for the site they were opening it up to other designs.
“Unfortunately, we didn’t put any restrictions on the developer,” Hillis added, such as restricting the approval to the project as described or requiring a re-approval to change the plans.
Ursula Hahn, a non-CB2 member of the its Land Use committee who also saw the original model presentation by Cara Developers and then-architects Sharples Holden Pasquarelli (SHoP Architects), said the plan the board approved was already setting a precedent for height in the area.
“They showed this dazzling, undulating light tower, and I think we noticed that this was going to be very high, but we were also very enamored with this building,” said Hahn in a recent interview with The Brooklyn Papers.
Michelle Whetten, president of the DUMBO Neighborhood Association (DNA), said she had not yet seen the plans for the J Condo.
“I can’t say we’ve exhausted all our options,” said Whetten, whose DNA raised concerns early on about the precedent a building of Light Bridges’ height might set. Whetten became president of the group this year.
Robert Perris, district manager of CB2 who was working as a community board liaison for the borough president’s office at the time the Light Bridges plan was passed, suggested that the mistake board members made in their approval of that project was “unfortunate” but, he said, it was a common ruse used by developers seeking spot rezonings.
“They’re voting on a zoning, not a building,” he said. “Unfortunately, this happens all the time.”
Originally Posted by Gulcrapek
Long site
Last edited by Derek2k3; June 4th, 2005 at 08:43 AM.
Inappropriate for DUMBO.
What is? the proposed Zoning? or the developements?
Brooklyn Papers
Excavation for 33-story DUMBO Building Begins
by Linda Colins (), published online 05-26-2005
http://www.brooklyneagle.com/archive...ce.php?id=4218
Previous design:
SHOP Architects
http://www.shoparc.com
T. Jason Anderson
http://www.neoedo.com/
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