A Guide to Preserving the Domino Plant

[Image courtesy of WPA, created from Google Earth]

If you're trying to keep up on what preservation of the Domino Plant in Williamsburg means, or doesn't mean, the Waterfront Preservation Alliance of Greenpoint & Williamsburg has been producing an invaluable guide on their site over the course of the last week. The image above is from their post on The Big Picture. You should also check out The Guide to the Domino Plant. Their background on the building known as the Adant House, a beautiful industrial building which is not part of the preservation process, is especially interesting:

The Adant House, which sits at the corner of South 5th and Kent, is one of the buildings that WPA has Landmarks to add to its designation. The building was constructed as part of the 1883 rebuilding of the Havemeyers & Elder Sugar Refinery, and was used for processing sugar into cubes (in a process patented by Gustav Adant in the late-19th century). The Adant House was originally 6 stories tall, with a penthouse at the seventh story, and was topped by the corbelled and pedimented parapets that were a hallmark of the original refinery design. In the 1950s, Domino cut the building down to four stories...

The property's owner, CPC Resources, has argued that preserving this building would not fit in with its development plans. WPA strongly disagrees - the CPC plan calls for a building of roughly 6 to 8 stories at this location. The Landmarks Commission would surely approve an addition to this building to bring it back to its well-documented historic height. So in essence, CPC is proposing to take down a building and replace with an almost identical height building. That is the Dutch Mustard scenario all over again - instead of a more interesting design that melds old and new, simply tear down the old and replace it with something far less interesting. Saving this building would enhance the overall design of the project, be more responsible from an environmental point of view, and would not impact the ability of the project to provide retail, affordable housing, or luxury housing. This building even has larger window openings than the main refinery.

There's also a guide to The Processing House, which is the big building with which everyone is familiar.