« TWU President Pushes MTA To Delay Vote On Development Rights of Hudson Rail Yards | Main | Atlantic Yards Review (1 Letter) »
July 24, 2006
NEW DOWNTOWN B'KLYN 'HEIGHTS'
The NY Post
By Patrick Gallahue
If you thought that Brooklyn was in store for overdevelopment brought to you by Ratner's Atlantic Yards plan, read what's already in store in Downtown Brooklyn as a part of the already formally City-approved "Downtown Brooklyn Plan."
Note: Most of these projects are luxury condominiums, which isn't exactly what NY City had in mind for the redevelopment of Downtown Brooklyn.
At least eight new construction projects are in the pipeline for a now-gritty three-block stretch of Flatbush Avenue between Tillary and Willoughby streets, just blocks from Bruce Ratner's $4.2 billion planned complex...
Among the projects being planned is a 60-story, multimillion-dollar hotel, office and condominium tower over a city-owned parking garage at Albee Square West, to be built by Thor Equities.
Down the block, on Myrtle Avenue, a $450 million pair of buildings - comprising a million square feet of space - are planned, according to John Catsimatidis, who will develop the projects.
...
Just across the street, BFC Development is hoping to break ground later this year on a roughly $200 million, 40-story residential and retail tower, by the architectural firm Skidmore Owings and Merrill, which designed the Freedom Tower."It's going to be in the area of a billion dollars between all [these] projects," said Ron Hershco, who broke ground on his own luxury 35- and 40-story buildings on Gold Street.
NoLandGrab: Before Atlantic Yards boosters waste their breath slamming Atlantic Yards critics for not opposing the current wave of Downtown Brooklyn development, let's make something clear — many of the same neighborhood activists were at the hearings for the Downtown Brooklyn Plan.
Readers may be familiar with the "Albee Square West" developer Thor Equities as the company re-envisioning Coney Island as a billion-dollar entertainment mecca. Coney Island is where Bruce Ratner and Marty Markowitz originally wanted to build the Nets arena — no reason has been given for their decision to pursue the Prospect Heights land-grab strategy instead.
Posted by lumi at July 24, 2006 12:08 PM