The city is once again keen on the notion of adding retail to the ground floor of the Brooklyn House of Detention on Atlantic Avenue. Daily Intelligencer reported yesterday that city commissioners are shopping around a new proposal that will result in a vibrant shopping arcade for the building when it reopens at double its old capacity in 2012. Skidmore, Owings & Merrill produced the rendering above as an example of what the space could look like, with Trader Joe’s as an imaginary anchor tenant. The revamped vision for the jail comes about a month after the Observer reported that the city had given up on its plans to allow for retail and condos in the property because of a lack of developer interest; a scheme to put a middle school in the jail also crashed and burned. Sandy Barboza, head of the Atlantic Avenue Betterment Association, told Daily Intel that the city was merely trying to soften the blow of the jail expansion. It is not worth retail to have the jail double in size, said Barboza.
Jail Reopening and Expansion Proposed [Daily Intel]
Plans for Ground-Floor Retail at Brooklyn House of Detention [NY Daily News]
Try, Try Again: Brooklyn’s Jail with Retail is Back [Curbed]
Brooklyn House of Detention Plans Falter [Brownstoner] GMAP
Rendering from Daily Intel.