A Look at the (Rejected) House of D Condo-Retail Plan
Yesterday someone with the email handle Concerned Citizen sent out a bunch of renderings (more on jump) that purport to be a proposal the city received—and rejected—in response to the RFP RFEI to put housing and retail in the Brooklyn House of Detention. The most striking aspect of the bid is that it sought to…
Yesterday someone with the email handle Concerned Citizen sent out a bunch of renderings (more on jump) that purport to be a proposal the city received—and rejected—in response to the RFP RFEI to put housing and retail in the Brooklyn House of Detention. The most striking aspect of the bid is that it sought to demolish the existing House of Detention and replace it with something like the structure above, as envisioned by Rogers Marvel and MVRDV. The proposal, which Curbed traces to Hamlin Ventures and Time Equities, would have included 190 units of market-rate housing, 300 units of affordable housing, and a retail component. Last month a Department of Corrections spokesperson told the Observer that whatever came back to the Economic Development Corporation responses did not meet either the specs or the objectives of whatever we and EDC had hoped for.
The Brooklyn Jail with Retail & Condos That Could Have Been [Curbed]
Brooklyn House of Detention Plans Falter [Brownstoner]
New Big House Retail Idea Making the Rounds [Brownstoner]
It been here as longer than I’ve lived in BK -it and the courts are an integral park of that neighborhood, why change it? Another soulless apartment building isn’t going to do anything for the neighborhood, at least the HOD has character.
1:25, isn’t everything economic? Money rules.
12:51 the second, I am sure that the Department of Corrections would have considered a program brief like the one you summarize…if it included something like the 1,600 cells it plans for Brooklyn. The Hamlin/Time Equities proposal doesn’t do that. The RFEI looked for a partner for a more ambitious design and, finding none, is left with “half-measures,” as you call them, as the cheapest alternative.
It isn’t necessarily more cost efficient. Read the articles by Dennis Holt from Brooklyn Eagle. Having the HOD somewhere else might cost more money day to day, and it would cost a lot to build it somewhere else, but the city has to take into account the large amount of income that the city could get from this incredibly valuable piece of land. It appears the city evaluated the increased costs but stopped before they got to the potential revenue. The groups opposing expansion in large part are just demanding that the city does this full study and releases the results.
12:51, there are different kinds of cost-benefit analyses. Yours is economic, but the city is looking at it another way.
For them, it is a choice between (1) expanding the House of Detention as of right, versus (2) going through ULURP in another community and enduring the political and legal firestorm that will ensue. There may be higher or smaller (net) costs in a new jail elsewhere, but it’s not a financial decision–the preceding is the cost-benefit analysis that the Department of Corrections has done.
12:28,
Quite a few people from the Ghouliani administration did go to jail. Unfortunately not for the BKHD fiasco but for similar antics. This jail will reopen. It would be better for it to have retail space just like the Manhattan House, but it will open regardless. It is more than just an issue of proximity to the courts. The buildings on Rikers Island are old and badly in need of repair. The Dept gets fined for not meeting any number of compliance issues many of them having to do with sanitation and building maintenace related issues to delaying access to attornies because of what it takes to get a civilian onto the Island. The other thing is that Rikers is below sea level in the East River by Laguardia, very inaccessible due to having only one three lane bridge. The Feds required the Department to develop an evacuation plan in case of natural disaster or an attack on the airport. It would be practically impossible to evacuate all of the staff and oh yeah, the inmates as things are now. It would be best to decentralize and spread the jails back out into the boros.
12:28, what are you talking about? Most of the community groups are reconciled with the HOD remianing on that site but they are hoping that the facility will be rebuilt and redesigned so as to be a better neighbor. This would entail a new building with multiple parts including a retail component on Atlantic Avenue, a residential or commercial component above the retail, and a new jail, separate and distinct, that would be accessed from State Street, that would contain parking, and that would be connected to the courts underground. There are intelligent and responsible approaches to the integration of uses on this parcel that would make real urbanistic and financial sense. But detention authority officials and local pols prefer to continue wasting money on half-measures that solve nothing and that, if anything, make things worse.
It isn’t necessarily more cost efficient. Read the articles by Dennis Hold from Brooklyn Eagle. Having the HOD somewhere else might cost more money day to day, and it would cost a lot to build it somewhere else, but the city has to take into account the large amount of income that the city could get from this incredibly valuable piece of land. It appears the city evaluated the increased costs but stopped before they got to the potential revenue. The groups opposing expansion in large part are just demanding that the city does this full study and releases the results.
I’m not saying that this meets the city’s needs or that this plan is perfect, but I think it shows the potential for something really innovative to be done with this land. Building another ugly tower to match the old one and sticking a few stores in the bottom doesn’t seem like the best compromise.