Admirals Row Plaza. Image Courtesy of  GreenbergFarrow.

Mixed-use project at southeast corner of Brooklyn Navy Yard would include adaptive reuse of two historic buildings. On June 20, 2011, the City Planning Commission certified the Brooklyn Navy Yard Economic Development Corporation’s proposed mixed-use development, known as Admirals Row Plaza, on a federally owned site at the southeast edge of the Brooklyn Navy Yard at Navy and Nassau Streets in Brooklyn. The site is occupied by ten residences along Nassau Street built between 1850 and 1901 to house naval officers, and a large timber shed along Navy Street dating from the 1830s that stored ship-building materials. The buildings have been vacant for more than 20 years and are severely deteriorated.

The U.S. Army National Guard Bureau retained control of the six-acre site after the City purchased the rest of the Brooklyn Navy Yard complex in 1967. In 2007 the Bureau commenced the federal review process to transfer control of the property to the City, which plans to lease the site to the Brooklyn Navy Yard Development Corporation. (more…)

Image: Courtesy of Gruzen Samton LLP

Opponents of proposed Williamsburg waterfront development wanted more affordable housing. On March 8, 2010, the City Planning Commission approved Rose Plaza on the River LLC’s proposed mixed-use development along Williamsburg’s East River waterfront at 470 through 490 Kent Avenue in Brooklyn. The project, known as Rose Plaza on the River, would provide approximately 800 residential units in three towers on a site currently occupied by storage and wholesale distribution businesses, and a lumber yard.

A 25-story tower on the site’s southern portion at the corner of Division and Kent Avenues would provide 309 residential units and 29,000 sq.ft. of retail space. South 11th Street, which currently ends at Kent Avenue, would be extended across the site providing a 60-foot wide visual corridor to the waterfront. North of the visual corridor, the developer would construct an eighteen-story building along Kent Avenue with 221 dwelling units. A 29-story building would provide 271 dwelling units on the site’s northern portion. Twenty percent of the project’s floor area would be set aside for affordable housing, which would result in 160 affordable one-, two-, and three-bedroom units located throughout the three buildings. A waterfront esplanade would include 33,188 sq.ft. of publicly accessible open space, and an underground garage would provide 496 parking spaces. (more…)

Proposal includes options for single- and multi-tenant building on site currently occupied by the Hotel Pennsylvania. On February 8, 2010, the City Planning Commission certified Vornado Realty Trust’s application to build a 2.05 million sq.ft. office tower at 15 Penn Plaza in Manhattan. The site is across the street from Madison Square Garden and Penn Station, and is currently occupied by the Vornado- controlled 1,700-room Hotel Pennsylvania. Vornado would demolish the hotel to build the tower, and it intends to construct an as-of-right building if it does not obtain approval for the proposed project. In order to increase development flexibility and ensure that it can begin construction as soon as possible, Vornado’s application included two different building plans. It originally proposed two building scenarios that would have provided 2.84 and 2.65 million sq.ft. of floor area respectively. 6 CityLand 7 (Feb. 15, 2009). The reduced certified proposal, however, showed two buildings that would each total 2.05 million sq.ft. of floor area. According to Vornado, the designs cannot be blended, and it intends to build one or the other of the proposed options.

A single-tenant, 67-story building option would feature a ten-story, 218-foot tall base with a tapered tower rising to 1,190 feet and no setback along the Seventh Avenue frontage. The tower proposal would provide 2.04 million sq.ft. of office space and 12,000 sq.ft. of retail space on the ground floor. (more…)

The Refinery LLC’s proposed Domino Sugar project in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Image: Courtesy Rafael Viñoly Architects.

Proposal includes five new high-rise buildings, 660 units of affordable housing, and four acres of open space along the East River. On January 4, 2010, the City Planning Commission certified The Refinery LLC’s proposed development at the 11.2-acre, landmarked Domino Sugar plant site in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Refinery LLC seeks to build a 2.75 million sq.ft., mixed-use development on a 9.8-acre parcel bounded by the East River, South 5th Street, Grand Street, Kent Avenue, and an adjacent upland parcel bounded by South 4th and South 3rd Streets, and Kent and Wythe Avenues. The project would create 2,200 residential units, including 660 affordable units, and provide four acres of publicly accessible waterfront space, 274,000 sq.ft. of retail and community facility space, 99,000 sq.ft. of office space, and 1,693 underground parking spaces.

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The Council’s Land Use Committee approved the proposal after the developer agreed to provide permanently affordable on-site housing. On December 14, 2009, the City Council’s Land Use Committee modified and approved Goldman Sachs and Related Companies’ proposal to develop the Western Rail Yard site on the far west side of Midtown, Manhattan. The thirteen-acre site is bounded by West 33rd Street to the north, West 30th Street to the south, Eleventh Avenue to the east, and Twelfth Avenue to the west. The High Line runs along the site’s southern and western edges, but it is not part of the proposed project.

The approved plan will convert the Metropolitan Transit Authority’s open rail storage yard into a 5.7 million sq.ft. development that would include eight mixed-use towers, containing roughly 4,600 – 5,700 dwelling units, 5.4 acres of open space, and a new public school. The proposal included setting aside twenty percent of the project’s rental units as affordable housing. Related submitted applications to rezone the site from an M2-3 to a C6-4 district, obtain special permits to build two parking garages with a maximum of 1,600 combined spaces, and to extend the Special Hudson Yards District to include the site. (more…)