Buddhist Center Planned for Boerum Hill

We noticed that Soka Gakkai International, a Buddhist sect headquartered in Japan, is building a new house of worship at 13 St. Marks Place in Boerum Hill. The DOB issued a new building permit on September 10 to construct a four-story building zoned for 12,959 square feet. Frederic Schwartz Architects is the architect of record and created the rendering pictured above, which we found attached to the construction fence. The Buddhist organization, which has another branch near Union Square, snagged the vacant lot in June 2012 for $1,650,000, according to Property Shark. In case you were wondering, SGI is a 12-million-strong lay Buddhist movement whose members “integrate their Buddhist practice into their daily lives, following the Lotus Sutra based teachings of Nichiren, a 13th-century Japanese Buddhist priest,” according to the group’s website. We couldn’t see over the construction fence, but work is scheduled to wrap in September 2014, according to the notice on the fence. GMAP