Rendering of proposed St. Ann’s Warehouse theater in Brooklyn’s Tobacco Warehouse. Image Credit: Rogers Marvel Architects.

Commission heard testimony from those who opposed significant alterations to preserved ruin, and those who wished to see structure used as cultural space. On June 4, 2013, the Landmarks Preservation Commission voted to issue a favorable advisory report following a hearing on a proposal to convert the stabilized ruins of a tobacco warehouse into a theater and community facility space. The structure stands at 45 Water Street in the Empire Fulton Ferry Park within the Fulton Ferry Historic District, near the Brooklyn Bridge. The structure, listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1974, was stabilized by the National Park Service, which removed the collapsing roof from the dilapidated building, and opened it to the public.

In 2011, a coalition of civic groups and preservationists won a lawsuit after the National Park Service wrongly excluded the structure from the park’s boundaries on the request of the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation, and Historic Preservation in order to convey the land and warehouse to the Brooklyn Bridge Park Development Corporation. The District Court decision pointed out that the Parks Department must go through a formal conversion process, in which the excised land has to be replaced with suitable land of equal or greater value. The conversion process has not yet concluded. The government still intends to convey the property to the Brooklyn Bridge Park Development Corporation, which awarded a contract to the St. Ann’s Warehouse theater company to convert and occupy the space after issuing a request for proposals in 2010.

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Citizens group challenged inclusion of private residential development. In 2002, Mayor Bloomberg and Governor Pataki created the Brooklyn Bridge Park Development Corporation as a subsidiary of the Empire State Development Corporation and charged it with the responsibility to design and build a proposed park on Port Authority land along Brooklyn’s East River waterfront. The 2002 agreement required that no less than 80 percent of the acreage be park space, all revenue generated from commercial uses would be exclusively used for park maintenance and the final development plan would be guided by a master plan created for the area in 2000.

The newly-created Park Development Corporation adopted a general project plan for an 85-acre parcel in July 2005, proposing 77 acres of park space and eight acres of revenue generating space, including residential buildings, private parking, hotels and retail/ restaurant space. (read more…)