51 Stories of Condos to Replace Macy's Parking Garage With 'Love Letter' Mural Downtown
The site where the Macy’s parking garage once stood in Downtown Brooklyn is being cleared to make way for condos.

View from Livingston Street and Elm Place. Photo by Susan De Vries
The Macy’s parking garage with artist Stephen Powers’ iconic and uplifting ‘Love Letter to Brooklyn’ is just about dunzo. It will be replaced by a 51-story building with 476 apartments, filings reveal. Hill|West Architects is designing.
When Brownstoner stopped by at 11 Hoyt Street recently, most of the 1960s era garage had already been demolished. By last week, just a few vestiges of the structure — a small section of the one-story retail shops — remained.
The plans were filed last week as an update to an Alt-1. The building will have a swimming pool on the second floor, a squash court, a sauna and pet care, according to the Schedule A.
There will also be stores on the lower floors. Tax documents filed earlier this year appear to indicate the building will contain a mix of condos and rentals, but the building will in fact be 100 percent condo, a spokesperson for Tishman Speyer told Brownstoner.

All the demolition permits to remove the structure were filed as alterations. In 2015, architect Hill|West filed an Alt 1 permit to reduce the five-story parking garage to a one-story retail building.
Hill|West is known for large scale projects, including 363-365 Bond Street and 86 Fleet Street.

A temporary facade mock-up was recently approved according to Building Department records. The applicant of record is James Patterson of Domani Tech and Design Services.
Until earlier this year, the stark concrete structure was the canvas for ‘Love Letter to Brooklyn,’ painted in 2011 by Brooklyn-based Powers on the walkways and sides of the garage. According to the artist, the mural (or parts of it) is currently in storage, awaiting a new home.

The project is part of a larger $279 million redevelopment of Macy’s by Tishman Speyer.
[Photos by Susan De Vries unless noted otherwise]
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