« Mayor urges Yonkers GOP chief to resign | Main | Desktop Day: Ward Bakery, Atlantic Yards »
March 23, 2007
Forest City embraces historic preservation, but not in Brooklyn
Atlantic Yards Report article on possible adaptive reuse of the Ward Bakery building is a must-read. So check out the blurb if you only have a moment, but surf on over to Norman Oder's site (link) when you get a chance.
The first curious thing about yesterday’s announcement that Forest City Ratner would demolish the Ward Bread Bakery (right), a nearly century-old set of interconnected brick and terracotta-clad buildings beloved by preservationists, is: why now?
The towers planned for the block between Pacific and Dean streets and Carlton and Vanderbilt avenues wouldn’t be built for seven or eight years at the earliest, and likely much longer. Phase 2 of the Atlantic Yards project, which would deliver all the promised open space, isn’t supposed to start until after 2010, and that block would come last. Moreover, the promised ten-year build-out could take 15 or 20 years.
Norman Oder speculates on the reasons why Forest City Ratner feels compelled to demolish the historic building and explains why this move goes against the grain of Forest City Enterprise's corporate mythology:
The second curious thing is that the developer, and especially its parent company, truly embraces historic preservation as a strategy—just not here. Compare the photo of FCE's River Lofts project in Richmond, VA (right) with the view of Pacific Street east of Carlton Avenue (below), with Ward Bakery in background. The Atlantic Yards project would involve not only the demolition of the yet-unrenovated bakery, but the demolition of two other former industrial buildings already renovated into condos, and another partially renovated for office space--the yellow building in the photo. (Former owner Shaya Boymelgreen once saw the "blighted" Ward Bakery as a potential hotel.)
...
During the National Trust for Historic Preservation's National Preservation Conference in 2002, FCE was the principal sponsor, and keynote speaker Ronald Ratner, president and CEO of Forest City's Residential Group, made a strong case for incorporating buildings like those on Pacific Street into the company's projects."We need to think more about the adaptive re-use opportunities,” Ratner declared. “That's how we can balance historic preservation and economic reality." He cited the importance of looking at the urban fabric: "We cannot focus on a single building. There is a much broader context of neighborhood, district, city and region. No matter how skillfully done, a building must be part of a vibrant urban fabric if it is to maintain its value and provide a return on financial and civic investment.”
...
Forest City has done adaptive re-use residential projects in Philadelphia, Boston, Denver, Los Angeles, Providence, and Richmond, for a total of 1673 units at eight properties, and converted “train stations, mills, warehouses and other historic buildings into upscale, mixed-use complexes.” In Times Square, the developer moved the landmark Empire Theatre 168 feet down the street to house the lobby of the new AMC Theatres.
But no worries, Forest City Ratner proposes "archival documentation of the buildings," so if you get to missing the majestic white elephant, there will be a DVD somewhere that will tell its story.
Posted by lumi at March 23, 2007 9:00 AM