DBP Does Its Five-Year Vision Thing
As we post this, the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership is about to begin briefing to the media about the five-year vision for the downtown area, loosely defined as the Flatbush corridor leading from the Manhattan Bridge to what the proposed Atlantic Yards project. The briefing may be a little anti-climactic though, since DBP gave The Post…
As we post this, the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership is about to begin briefing to the media about the five-year vision for the downtown area, loosely defined as the Flatbush corridor leading from the Manhattan Bridge to what the proposed Atlantic Yards project. The briefing may be a little anti-climactic though, since DBP gave The Post the scoop a day early. What you see above are the envisioned transformations of two spots—the Metrotech area and the BAM Cultural District—that ran in the paper this morning. The article also trots out a lot of big numbers:
• $9.5 billion
• 56 projects
• 14,300 new residential units
• 35,000 new residents
• 1,800 hotel rooms
• 3.2 million s.f. of commercial
The thing we were most interested to see, however, was the glimpse of the Flatiron-shaped BFC tower currently rising at the southeast corner of Myrtle and Flatbush; we’ve been trying to get a look for a while but the developer has been closely guarding the finished product. You can check out two not particularly close-up views on the jump.
B’klyn Reaches for The Skies [NY Post]
Downtown Brooklyn Renderings [NY Post]
Downtown Brooklyn Video [NY Post]
The whole idea of the plan is to have a central area within the city of Brooklyn.Still surrounded by low rise and brownstones.
This is over building.LEEDs, no LEEDs these buldings will be junk.There are no schools,Friends and St. Anns doesn’t have room for the Yups & their pups.I’ve been in Boymelgreens buildings on 4th Ave. You will be listening to your neighbors wall mounted flat screen in your 1/2 Mil. studio. Try getting across Flatbush at Tillary, you take your life in your hands, now. This doesn’t just effect Downtown the traffic and congestion will be felt for miles.
Even if this plan is followed to the letter, 90% of Brooklyn will remain low-rise. People often forget that there’s life beyond the brownstone belt.
FSRG,
Please get over yourself. We doubt you’re truly frightened…even though we just went through Halloween…okay, maybe you’ve got a Halloween hangover…
You kind of got off on a big LEEDS jag when what I was pointing out is that these towers will probably SCORE low on LEEDS in the end. They may look good on paper for LEEDS but go take an infrared picture of any of these towers (once they’re built) on a cold winter’s night and “fuhgeddiboudit”!
And anyway, you only serve to enhance what I was pointing out with LEEDS: that it’s a rating system…so when developers bandy about “LEEDS Compliant”, “LEEDS this and that” it becomes a pretty empty tagline. You need to get to a basic level to state that a building is LEEDS compliant but it can be at a very low level (in terms of making any real impact) so all the excitement around “LEEDS anything”, I find, is diluted when I look at the fine print behind any project. And, again, a project may look great on paper but it also needs to be built great in reality.
Every building has “had alot of vacant space over time”-
the issue is the vacancy rate (% of vacancies at any one time) – historically Metrotech has been low and the FDNY offices werent a “bail out” of vacant space – it was built specifically for the FDNY (and only a few blocks from its former DOWNTOWN Bklyn headquaters)
LEEDS is a rating system which has various levels of classifications. Your criticism is stupid – the equivalent of saying that car EPA MPG ratings are dumb because cars that get 10 MPG still get an EPA rating. Some buildings have better LEEDS ratings than others. – your willingness to speak without any knowledge is truly frightening
FSRG
I’m moving to Downtown Brooklyn pretty soon (Jan 2008). I like the townhouses and brownstones but renting a unit there just sucks. The buildings are great to look at from the outside and I’m sure it is even better to own the entire building but, there is no privacy and noise carries through like paper.
I’ll take concrete floors and ceilings over thin wood planks any day like some other poster stated.
2:47 (who came back to give a lesson at 3:56 and give thanks at 5:50):
Please don’t feel so smug in some sense of your understanding of “realpolitik” or from an attitude of jaded reality-checkism. If you give up from the start and figure your voice counts at no other time than at the (questionable) ballot box than we might as well close up shop now.
What do elections even count for? Turnout is astonishingly low across the country. For example, does anyone realize Ahnahld (I’ll be bahk) was “elected” (TotalRecalled into office) by a tiny portion of the California electorate? It wasn’t even representative. So to give up and think we have no way to determine how our civic lives play out except for a possible chance every four years is…I don’t know…sad. No, not “sadâ€. It is “enlightening†to see how lave-cervelled some people are.
TGL
Thank you 5:09. YES, Metrotech has, indeed, a lot of vacant space over time!
3:39 doesn’t seem to realize that Ratner had lots of sweetheart leasing deals from the City to cover his a** and make sure FCR had a healthier rent roll and occupancy rate…
And, 3:39…LEEDS is low level and insufficient…in application, it’s almost as B.S.-y as carbon trading. It’s a points system that gives you credit for big whoopdie stupid merdserie like installing big-deal Eco Star appliances. WOW! Eco Star! Such a load of clap. And sure, there are lots of design features, material choices and construction processes/management that can save energy and materials but even if they are down on paper at the outset, these buildings will MOST PROBABLY not be built to spec or be that well construction-managed. Having worked for one NYC’s largest construction companies I’ve seen it from the inside.
You misunderstand me GrammarLady. But thanks for the insults all the same…