New Owner, New Look for Stalled Development Site at Long-Shuttered Fort Greene Gas Station

A long-shuttered gas station and long-stalled development site on Vanderbilt in Fort Greene has a new owner and new renderings. All-Year Management and ODA are out; Dumbo-based Tankhouse, cofounded by the son of Pritzker Prize-winning architect Thom Mayne, plans a mix of retail and apartments at 134 Vanderbilt Avenue that could reach 16 stories and require a rezoning.

Renderings on Tankhouse’s website show a building with a lot of big windows and some interesting, stepped volumes, not unlike ODA’s previous design minus the boxiness. A recessed space carves out a terrace and a balcony above the entrance to the building on the second floor.

A rendering of an outdoor space shows the back of the building dominated by glass, which reflects the terra-cotta hue of the building.

It’s unclear whether the two renderings are meant to show the building’s materials in addition to its shape. Based on the renderings, the building appears to be a somewhat Brutalist-looking structure covered in terra cotta-colored stucco.

Tankhouse plans approximately 87,000 square feet of retail and residential at the site and expects to complete the project in 2023, according to its website.

Located on the corner of Myrtle Avenue, the site currently has a total of only 37,380 buildable square feet, according to PropertyShark, about half of what Tankhouse envisions, so the company may intend to apply for an upzoning . No new applications for a new-building permit have been filed with the DOB since 2014.

In March, gas-station convenience store chain Cumberland Farms sold the property to 134vap LLC for $10 million, public records show. An address for the LLC matches that of Tankhouse, the development and design firm co-founded by Sam Alison-Mayne, who is currently building a deconstructed carriage house designed by his Pritzker Prize-winning father only a few blocks away in the Fort Greene Historic District.

In 2014, Cumberland inked a contract with All Year Management, but the sale never went through, according to public records. The gas station closed the same year, and demo permits were issued in 2014 and 2015. The gas station building remains though the pumps are gone. It’s unclear whether the site requires remediation. Since 2015, it’s been radio silence.

Back in 2014, an application for a new-building permit called for an eight-story building with a mix of retail and residential totaling 41,119 square feet. ODA replaced Karl Fischer as the architect of record, as we reported at the time.

All Year Management has been having financial troubles in recent years, according to The Real Deal, which could explain why the initial deal never closed. Another All Year Management project, an ODA-designed luxury hotel in Crown Heights, began construction but also appears to be stalled. At one point, ODA seemed to have more than a dozen projects in the works in Brooklyn, but has been less visible in the borough lately.

The fenced-in site has been an eyesore for years, and many local residents have complained about it. The property is one of many local gas stations that have closed and sold as development sites as property prices have risen steeply across the borough in recent years. — Additional reporting by Cate Corcoran

Related Stories

• ODA Replaces Karl Fischer, Designs Boxy Building to Replace Gulf Station in Fort Greene
• Fort Greene Carriage House Design From Pritzker Prize-Winning Architect Gets LPC Approval
• Gas Stations From Fort Greene to Bed Stuy to Become Apartments

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