Development

Brooklyn is already a center for tech firms, but now a coalition of business groups and landlords is taking it a step further with a master plan for a “tech triangle.” The group is called the Brooklyn Tech Triangle, and it’s a partnership of the Brooklyn Navy Yard, the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership, and the Dumbo Business Improvement District, Crain’s reported. The sweeping and ambitious plan will repurpose old buildings and rework the streetscap and public areas from Dumbo to the Navy Yard to appeal to tech firms. The group is proposing several zoning changes, including one that would allow residential use of old industrial buildings if there is also a set-aside for commercial space as well. This idea, which would obviously have a huge impact on Brooklyn development, has been floated for four blocks of empty warehouses that run along the BQE outside the Navy Yard. “With more than a million square feet of space along just four blocks, an acreage equal to about 60 percent of that total available in Dumbo, the partnership thinks this could be the perfect spot to add tech space,” said Crain’s. The plan also proposes dotting the area with more green space and adding ped and bike paths, a topiary arbor, a curved footbridge to Borough Hall and, remarkably, “a seasonal pop-up structure fantasy land of mini-golf, performance stages, lounges and wading pools” under the Manhattan Bridge, The New York Post reported. Meanwhile, according to The New York Daily News, the City is launching a 10,000-square-foot incubator Downtown at 15 MetroTech. It’s a partnership between  New York City Economic Development Corp. and the Polytechnic Institute of New York University, the Clean Technology Entrepreneur Center. It will house 20 startups, with $750,000 in funding from NYCEDC. What do you think of this?
Rendering via NY Post