Proposed special district would require active ground-floor commercial uses and establish transparency requirements. On October 19, 2011, the City Planning Commission modified the Department of City Planning’s proposed Special 4th Avenue Enhanced Commercial District in Park Slope and South Park Slope, Brooklyn. The district would encompass 56 blocks along 4th Aveenue between Atlantic Avenue and 24th Street. The west side of 4th Avenue between Douglass and 6th Streets and between the Prospect Expressway and 24th Street would not be included within the district. Planning proposed the district to encourage active, pedestrianfriendly uses along the evolving 4th Avenue mixed-use corridor.

Fourth Avenue is a wide commercial thoroughfare historically characterized by auto repair shops and low-rise rowhouses with ground floor retail. The blocks within the proposed special district are zoned R8A, with all but four blocks mapped with a C2-4 commercial overlay. The blocks had been included in several recent rezonings of Park Slope and South Park Slope. The area has shifted towards residential uses as developers have built higher density apartment buildings up to twelve stories in height. Although some new buildings include active ground floor uses, many contain blank walls and parking garage entrances. Planning proposed the district to ensure that future development along 4th Avenue provides a pedestrian-friendly streetscape with an appropriate mix of commercial and community facility uses.  (more…)

Neighborhood adjacent to Atlantic Yards characterized by 19th Century rowhouses. On July 15, 2008, Landmarks moved to calendar 21 blocks in Prospect Heights, the first step in designating a new historic district. With 870 buildings, the proposed district would be Brooklyn’s largest. Bordering Forest City Ratner’s Atlantic Yards development, as well as Prospect Park, the area is characterized by residential 19th Century rowhouses, predominantly in Neo- Grec, Italianate, Second Empire, and Renaissance Revival styles.

Development of Prospect Heights began in the mid-19th Century, spurred by its proximity to downtown Brooklyn, the East River, and later, the Brooklyn Bridge. Prospect Heights experienced several waves of development, and, in addition to its characteristic brownstones, is home to neo-Classical apartment buildings, including the 1889 Prospect View apartments, as well as various institutional buildings. (more…)

Developers must expand Brooklyn jail along with new development on adjacent sites. The New York City Economic Development Corporation and the Department of Correction issued a request to gauge interest in the potential development of two vacant parcels in downtown Brooklyn located next to the Brooklyn House of Detention, a 759-individual- cell detention center, which the City closed in 2003. DOC hopes to reopen and expand the existing 10-story, 280,000-square-foot detention center located along Atlantic Avenue between Smith Street and Boerum Place. The request requires that interested developers refurbish the facade of the detention center, redevelop its first three floors, add 11,300 sq.ft. of retail to its Atlantic Avenue frontage and oversee construction of a 165,000- square-foot jail expansion along with any new development proposed for the adjacent parcels.

On the two empty parcels, located directly east and west of the detention center along Smith Street and Boerum Place, EDC calculates that up to 238,500 sq.ft. of space can be developed. It asks developers to propose either residential or commercial projects with 15,700 sq.ft. of ground-floor retail. EDC anticipates splitting and selling the lots to the developer. The developer would also own the Atlantic Avenue retail space within the detention center. (more…)

Downtown Brooklyn mall to be demolished for large mixed-use retail, office, and residential center. On February 13, 2007, the New York City Industrial Development Agency, a component of the New York City Economic Development Corporation, approved financial assistance for the construction of a new 1.8-million-square-foot mixed-use development in downtown Brooklyn to replace the existing 169,500-square-foot Albee Street Mall.

Albee Development, a partnership of developers Acadia Realty, MacFarlane Partners and Avalon Bay, will purchase the mall for $125 million, according to press articles, from the current owner, Thor Equities, which purchased the property for $21 million in 2001. Albee will demolish the three-story mall, replacing it with below-grade parking, nearly 500,000 sq.ft. of retail space, 125,000 sq.ft. of office space, and 1,000 residential units, 20 percent of which are planned for lowand moderate-income residents.

IDA approved financing for the office space, planned for floors five through seven, in the amount of $1.2 million in mortgage recording tax exemptions and $2 million in sales tax exemptions. EDC stated that the new development will create 1,500 jobs, including 500 office jobs.

Representatives from Families United for Racial and Economic Equality, a local community organizing group, and tenants of the current mall voiced strong opposition to the project at IDA’s February 8, 2007 hearing. “We don’t want Brooklyn to look like Manhattan,” one speaker declared after arguing that the small, locally-owned, minority-run businesses currently located in the mall would not be likely tenants of the new high-end retail space. Two tenants, who testified that they poured their “last dimes” into their businesses, asked why tax payer money and City property should go to luxury housing. Opponents said the new retail and housing would be too expensive to serve the immediate community.

NYC IDA Hearing, Feb. 8, 2007; NYC EDC Press Release, NYC Industrial Development Agency to Help Spur New Office Space in Downtown Brooklyn, Feb. 13, 2007.

Signs requested by MetroTech BID and local businesses. Landmarks issued a binding report approving MetroTech BID’s proposal to install “way finding signage” throughout downtown Brooklyn. The proposal developed more than three years ago from a general consensus among MetroTech and downtown Brooklyn business groups that there was a lack of signage in downtown Brooklyn to assist pedestrians in finding key destinations. Initially using its own funds, and later obtaining capital funding from Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz and the City Council, MetroTech is now working with the Economic Development Corporation to further its proposal.

MetroTech’s plan to install kiosks and pole-mounted signs throughout downtown Brooklyn impacted six historic districts: Brooklyn Academy of Music, Brooklyn Heights, Clinton Hill, Cobble Hill, Fort Greene, and Fulton Ferry. The kiosks will be approximately sevenfeet tall and two-feet wide and placed at major pedestrian traffic locations, such as subway and bus stops. They will display a map directory on one side and a detailed, area-wide map on the other. Directional signs, approximately two-feet square, will be mounted on poles approximately 11-feet tall and will complete the signage system by providing directions to specific locations. (more…)