Earlier today, the Municipal Art Society presented six different plans to the U.S. National Guard that would allow for both the preservation of Admiral’s Row (which includes 10 19th-century houses and a timber shed from the 1830s) and the creation of a new supermarket and additional retail and industrial space; the plans also call for more green and community space than the Brooklyn Navy Yard Development Corp’s current proposal. BNYDC’s plan calls for a sea of nearly 400 parking spaces in the fashion of the suburban-style supermarket model,” said MAS’s Lisa Kersavage. “By contrast, MAS’s alternative plans show that by reconfiguring or even reducing the parking and shifting the location of the new buildings, a greener and more pedestrian-friendly site can be achieved.

From the MAS press release:

In the MAS alternative, the historic houses along Flushing Street are retained and are used on their ground floor as retail to encourage pedestrians to walk between the houses into a central green space. Additions connecting the upper floors in the rear of the historic buildings could enable them to be used as a business incubator or startup business center. The timber shed in this scheme is elongated and used as a farmer’s market. By contrast, the same viewpoint in the BNYDC’s plan (rendering on the jump) simply shows the suburban-sized supermarket and acres of asphalt and concrete.

The MAS proposal joins an earlier plan put forth by Brent Porter of Pratt. We expect there will be more calls for creative have-your-cake-and-eat-it-too plans in the near future. To view the Admirals Row study commissioned by the National Guard, click here.

Update: We got our hands on renderings of five of the plans; they were created by Russell Crader and were funded by the Daniel K. Thorne Intervention Fund of the Northeast Office of the National Trust for Preservation.

The Morning After Update: See a slideshow of the entire MAS presentation here; read Gowanus Lounge’s heartfelt editorial on the issue here.
Public Hearing on Admiral’s Row Held Last Night [Brownstoner]
Pratties Have ‘Cake-and-Eat-It’ Design for Admiral’s Row [Brownstoner]
Guard Starts Talks ‘To Come Up With Alternatives’ For Row [Brownstoner]
James Opens Door to (Partial) Admiral’s Row Preservation [Brownstoner]
Renderings by Andrew Burdick of the studio collaborative and Architecture for Humanity New York