Sitt Reverses on Student Housing for Red Hook
This is weird. On Tuesday at the quarterly gathering of the Brooklyn Real Estate Roundtable, when questioned about his plans for the former Revere Sugar Factory site in Red Hook, said clearly (and we’re staring at our notes as we write this) that he envisioned the site being “quasi residental…Maybe student housing.” This was immediately…
This is weird. On Tuesday at the quarterly gathering of the Brooklyn Real Estate Roundtable, when questioned about his plans for the former Revere Sugar Factory site in Red Hook, said clearly (and we’re staring at our notes as we write this) that he envisioned the site being “quasi residental…Maybe student housing.” This was immediately tweeted, blogged and reported in the mainstream media. Then, this morning, in The Post, Sitt denied ever saying anything about building dorms above retail on the site. Instead, he went back to his original script of wanting to do bob box retail. What gives?
Former Coney Developer Setting Sights on Red Hook [NY Post]
Developer Backs Off Red Hook Dorm [Curbed]
i’ve been on the waterfront a lot and can say the tugs make less noise than traffic on 4th ave.
and why would a tug point a spotlight at a building on a shore where they are not headed? that makes no sense to me.
i dont disagree that this guy sounds like a scumbag, however, does anyone have a better explanation for the fuss over re-zoning? seems like the views/waterfront would be prime target despite crappy transportation situation.
The tugs work 24-hours a day and apparently they can be loud and at night they sometimes also need to use spotlights. So I see their concern. SInce I can easily envision how 1M+ loft dwellers wouldn’t want their bedroom lit up like a Christmas tree at 3 a.m.
I was there. He DEFINITELY said that he wanted to do retail on the ground floor with some sort of “quasi-residential” use above. When asked what he meant, he said that he thought it would be a great location for student housing. Scumbag.
yea i don’t understand how housing would interfere with the tugs or vice-versa. pls explain.
and why is a residential rezoning controversial?
Who on earth would mind tug boats working in their vicinity? I am IN LOVE with the tug boats, they make my day.
Student housing being some sort of Trojan horse for future residential? Somehow I don’t think this is going to make people any less skeptical of Mr. Sitt. (Or maybe it’s a stalking horse – either way, it sounds like a dead duck.)
I also have notes from the Community Board meeting several years back where Sitt gave a long speech about being a Brooklyn boy who only wanted to enrich the borough and then went on to say he wanted to repurpose the Revere Sugar Factory as a cultural institution and that Red Hook shouldn’t worry about losing what the neighborhood thought of as a unique landmark. And then he went and tore it down. I think he has a habit of talking shit and re-negging. The Student Housing thing was clearly a lame ploy at getting residential rezoning that’s otherwise been fought down. Both NY Water Taxi and the city’s tugboats work out of Erie Basin and the tugs in particular are a business that’s not compatible with residential since they’re 24 hour. They’re rightly worried if this gets rezoned, especially for the kind of luxury housing that someone would want to build there, that their business will get pushed out.
Does Bob Box know Harry Hymen?
the ol’ bob box retail strikes again