LPC Sends Back Proposal for Addition to Brooklyn Heights Retail Space, Currently Home to CityMD

The architects behind a proposal for a top and rear addition to a commercial building at 135 Montague Street in Brooklyn Heights need to come back and try again, the Landmarks Preservation Commission told them Tuesday.

The building, built between 1920 and 1929, was previously home to preppy clothing retailer Banana Republic, which closed in 2016. Currently, it houses chain urgent care clinic CityMD.

Eli M. Dweck is listed as the owner on property records.

At the hearing, commissioners had a variety of suggestions for Marin Architects, the firm behind the project.

“I think the design is appropriate, but think [the addition] could be moved back,” Commissioner Michael Devonshire said. “And I would like to see it reduced by one story.”

Moving back the addition and seeing it reduced to one story was supported, to different degrees, by most of the commissioners, who thought one or the other might save the original building from being subsumed.

But others completely disagreed.

“I don’t think setting it back will do a thing,” said Commissioner Michael Goldblum. Instead, he suggested that the architects take a look at the color: instead of matching the existing building, he suggested making the addition darker, “purposefully contrasting with the landmarked building.”

Commissioner Wellington Chen suggested that setting the addition back might actually have the inverse effect, making it more prominently stand out.

LPC Chair Meenakshi Srinivasan’s suggestions were somewhere in the middle. She did not think setting the addition back would make a difference, but agreed with Devonshire that the size of the addition needed to be lowered to one story.

As for the idea of making the addition contrast with the original building, she had concerns. “I think it will be more jarring,” she said.

The architects have a number of different approaches to move forward, she concluded.

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