Apartment Building on Former Fox Savoy Theater Site in Crown Heights Nears Completion
The look of the 10-story apartment building differs from the most recent rendering.
A 10-story apartment building on the former site of the Fox Savoy Theater at 1515 Bedford Avenue in Crown Heights is looking close to finished, despite a lawsuit filed by the former owner against the developer.
The grey-brick facade looks complete on the exterior but it was difficult to tell how far along the interior is when we stopped by last week. The green construction fence is still up and workers were busy on the ground floor.
The design differs from the most recent rendering, featured a glassy facade of floor to ceiling windows interrupted by vertical stripes of brick. The actual building is a fairly standard masonry one with windows above PTAC units.
The Thomas Lamb-designed movie palace was originally built in 1926 for motion picture magnate William Fox of 20th Century Fox, and it featured an ornate neo-Classical facade made of white terra cotta.
It was featured as a Building of the Day twice, once in 2010 and later in 2013. The second piece focused on the discovery that previous owner Charity Baptist Church sold the building to a developer for only $575,000.
The theater was demolished in 2014.
The architect of record is Issac & Stern, and the developer is Realty Within Reach, which manages several other Crown Heights buildings and is developing affordable housing nearby in Bed Stuy. The building, whose new address is 1511 Bedford Avenue, will have 114 units total, parking for 59 vehicles, bike storage, and a “rooftop recreation” area, according to building permits.
The developer promised Charity Baptist Church 5,000 square feet of ground-floor space in the building as well as an additional 2,000 square feet in the building’s basement, but reneged on its promise, the group told DNAinfo in 2017. Instead, the developer located the worship space to the basement, not the ground floor as was promised, building filings show.
A lawsuit was filed charging the space does not conform to the contract because the worship area is below grade, an attorney for the church told Brownstoner Friday. We have reached out to the developer for comment.
[Photos by Craig Hubert unless otherwise noted]
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