CLOSE AD ×

Brooklyn’s first skyscraper over 1,000 feet given approval

Brooklyn's Landmarks Preservation Commission has given the green light

Brooklyn’s first skyscraper over 1,000 feet given approval

Late last year, AN picked up a trail that SHoP Architects were planning a “super skinny supertall” skyscraper set for 9 DeKalb Avenue in Brooklyn. Now, the project has finally gathered some momentum: it’s been granted approval from the Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC).

According to 6sqft, the LPC showered the project, which is being back by Michael Stern’s JDS Development and the Chetrit Group, with compliments. They reportedly described the project as “flawless” and “enlightened urbanism at its best.”

Developers had to tread carefully, considering the proximity of the skyscraper to one of Brooklyn’s historic architectural treasures. Occupied most recently by JP Morgan, the development is giving the landmarked Classical Revivalist Dime Savings Bank a new breath of life.

In doing so, developers will turn the hall into a public and retail space and restore the lavish interior decor and ornate exterior marble facade. The LPC were inclined to comment that the restoration “improved the vision of this historic landmark” with one commissioning member remarking that it was “similar to the Parthenon sitting on the Acropolis.” You can find SHoP’s LPC presentation here.

To accommodate the skyscraper, which will sit adjacent the Beaux-Arts banking hall, developers are also asking for two local low-rise buildings to be demolished to make way.

If (or rather when) realized, the skyscraper will be the boroughs first 1,000+ in height, rising to 73 stories high topping out at 1,066 feet. Hexagonal forms can be found throughout tower as an homage to the footprint of its neighbor.

Gregg Pasquarelli of SHoP Architects reportedly said how they wanted to put forward a different tower design compared to the slab-like high-rises also going up around the area. Subsequently, the skyscraper’s facade at street level aims to evoke the fluted ionic columns of the Bank through reflective glass fenestration with bronze mullions alongside white marble columns.

As the tower stretches upward, the bronze ribbons join grey spandrel and vision glass panelling. Here black metal is employed in a similar, linear fashion running up the building’s facade.

Set to be complete by 2019, SHoP’s Brooklyn high-rise will house around 500 apartments, all available to rent. In this selection, a range of luxury condos will be thrown in while 20 percent will be kept below the market rate.

CLOSE AD ×