Office Tenants Anchor Starchitect David Adjaye's Vision for World Class Bed Stuy Cultural Hub

Prominent British architect David Adjaye’s vision for a world-class cultural hub in Bed Stuy will replace Bedford Stuyvesant Restoration Corp.’s fortress-like campus with one that is open to the community. In the works well before Covid and its office space disruptions, the project seeks to revamp a flawed and fraying structure and double the space for current and future office tenants.

Located at 1368 Fulton Street, the longtime physical and economic hub of the neighborhood is today low slung and inward facing, with tucked-away outdoor public spaces and windowless walls running along the street side.

That 1972 redevelopment of the neighborhood’s old Sheffield bottling plant will give way to three outward facing buildings as tall as 16 stories, grouped around a central plaza that will be visible and accessible to the street. Today’s blank walls will be replaced by large, inviting, pedestrian-friendly windows at the street level. The project’s smallest building, in the center of the complex, will project over a petite transparent base designed to provide maximum visibility into the courtyard.

The proposal will require the lengthy public approval process known as ULURP for a rezoning (from C4-5D to C6-2) and special permit to allow increased density and height. A draft scope of work and other documents were released in January, a virtual scoping meeting took place earlier this month, and written comments on the drafts can be submitted to City Planning through Monday, February 27.

Bedford Stuyvesant Restoration Corp., which among other things helps build and maintain affordable housing throughout the neighborhood, is not planning any apartments at this location, but the city’s affordable housing program known as Mandatory Inclusionary Housing may come up during the public review process, triggered by the project’s changes to floor-area ratio, according to City Planning documents.

If the proposal gets the green light, construction is expected to last at least eight years, The City reported in January. The first phase is anticipated to cost around $150 million to $175 million to build, and New York City has already said it will kick in $50 million, according to the publication.

The organization has taken out a number of mortgages over the years amounting to several million dollars, but nothing that would come close to covering the costs of this project. The group also has a number of liens, including one dating from 2016 totaling $1,017,184 for a mortgage from Carver Federal Savings Bank, public records show.

The existing complex was kept low to stay in keeping with Bed Stuy’s famed blocks of 19th century brownstones and townhouses. The new towers will be closer in height to newly constructed apartment buildings along Fulton and other busy avenues allowed by a 2012 rezoning of the area.

The phasing of construction will allow the complex’s gigantic Super Foodtown grocery store to stay open through construction, then quickly move into its new building on New York Avenue, minimizing downtime. The Billie Holiday Theatre and other existing tenants, including Community Board 3 and other government offices, as well as the development corporation’s own job training and other programs, will get bigger and better new homes, according to the organization.

While the Sheffield bottling plant and other existing buildings will be razed, there will also be space for new tenants such as partners and other nonprofits with missions similar to Restoration Corp. Their rents could potentially bring in more revenue for the nonprofit.

Before the pandemic, prime office space appeared scarce on the ground in Brooklyn, propelling a handful of ambitious new-construction projects — including Dock 72 in the Brooklyn Navy Yard, Williamsburg’s 25 Kent, and a glassy new office building rising inside the shell of the landmarked 1880s Domino Sugar factory on the Williamsburg waterfront — some of which now appear to be struggling. Funding for office projects may be more difficult than before Covid.

Adjaye, born in Tanzania to Ghanaian diplomatic parents, designed the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C., and the Sugar Hill mixed-use development in Harlem, among many other projects. In Brooklyn, he designed the Clinton Hill studio of artist Lorna Simpson.

Established in 1967 by Robert F. Kennedy, with the cooperation of Senator Jacob K. Javits and Mayor John W. Lindsay and in collaboration with local activists, Bedford Stuyvesant Restoration Corp. was the country’s first community development corporation.

The organization’s home already had a minor makeover almost a decade ago. The seven-year-long renovation of Restoration Plaza and other public plazas on Fulton Street, an effort to integrate Restoration Plaza better with the neighborhood and streetscape, was completed in 2013.

The latest effort is intended to create a “global hub dedicated to disrupting Brooklyn’s widening racial wealth gap,” said the nonprofit in a press release about the project last week. The proposed neighborhood cultural center and public gathering space are the organization’s response to the changing environment.

“Restoration Plaza was built to serve as a catalytic engine for economic and cultural change in a neighborhood plagued by divestment,” the group said. “But the needs it was built to address — including delivering basic infrastructure — have changed dramatically as central Brooklyn has become a national epicenter of gentrification.”

[Renderings courtesy of Adjaye Associates via Bedford Stuyvesant Restoration Corp. | Photos by Susan De Vries]

Related Stories

• Bed Stuy Is One Step Closer to Getting a Massive New Development Designed by Sir David Adjaye
• As Bed Stuy Booms, Restoration Corp. Taps David Adjaye to Revamp Plaza to Boost Longtime Locals
• In Bed Stuy, Cultural Icon Billie Holiday Theatre Advances to the Next Stage

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