Downtown Update from Joe Chan at CB2 Meeting

Last night at the Community Board 2 meeting, Joe Chan, who heads up the increasingly all-encompassing Downtown Brooklyn Partnership, gave an update on how the various development, transportation and beautification projects are going. We’ll come revisit some of these in more detail and with photographs in the coming weeks, but this morning we’ll just perform more of a data dump of what grabbed our attention. Some of it may already have been reported, but most of the timetable information should be news to most readers.

BAM North Site: The HPD-controlled site will be a mixed-use building, with residential (50 percent of which will be affordable) and cultural (dance performance space as well as rehearsal and studio space) components. The development team will be chosen within the next couple of weeks. The building will likely be 25-30 stories high, with a significant setback at between 45 and 65 feet high.

Strand Theatre: A renovation is planned with the goal of improving the building’s interaction with the street. The City’s Economic Development Corporation has already received expressions of interest from architects, narrowed the list and issued RFPs; the architect for the project should be selected by the end of the year.

Theatre for a New Audience: The Frank Gehry/Hugh Hardy collaboration, which will provide a new home for the progressive theater company, is expected to break ground in Spring 2008.

BAM Cultural District Streetscape: Landscape architect Ken Smith, who’s the man behind the East River Waterfront project and the MOMA sculpture garden, is putting together preliminary concepts and is expected to make a presentation to the community board later this Fall.

Flatbush Avenue Streetscape: The City’s Art Commission, which is responsible for review all design-related projects, gave preliminary approval on Monday for a planted median, street furniture and lighting on Flatbush from Tillary to Lafayette; construction is expected to start in June 2008.

Fulton Street Mall: The Art Commission has given preliminary approval for a plan that would create new sidewalks, bus shelters and lighting for the Mall, and construction is expected to being in Spring 2008; in addition, a review of the current bus routes (which currently results in the Mall being a gathering place for every bus in Downtown Brooklyn) is underway.

Boerum Place Streetscape: Construction has recently begun on a project to extend the Boerum Place median along Adams to Atlantic Avenue; it’s expected to last about nine months.

Willoughby Square Park: Responses to a request for qualifications from landscape architects interested in designing a park at Willoughby Square are due today.

BAM Cultural District: Alive If Not Exactly Kicking [Brownstoner]
Bloomberg Pulls Rank in BAM Cultural District [Brownstoner]
New map of the BAM Cultural District on the jump.