Musings and Photos about Life and Real Estate Development in Post-Industrial Brooklyn and New York City
Wednesday, March 05, 2008
LPC Sends Domino Designers Back to Drawing Board
[Rendering courtesy of Rafael Viñoly Architects]
The Landmarks Preservation Commission considered the proposed changes to the landmarked Domino Plant in Williamsburg yesterday, and told the architects to come back with a different design. The WGPA blog brought news of the hearing yesterday afternoon. New Domino architect Rafael Viñoly even appeared at the hearing, but it was Beyer Blinder Belle, which produced the design that includes a glass box at the top, whose work was the focus yesterday. The Beyer architects compared their work to a variety of structures including the Tate Modern, but the feedback was not entirely positive. Some LPC members felt addition was either "too tall," "not the right design" or too "tame." Other said it needs to be "more visionary" and emphasize the "industrial rigor" of the landmark, whatever the latter might mean. Domino Plant V. 2.0 to come.
The Landmarks Preservation Commission heard testimony about the five-story glass box developers propose to put atop the historic Domino Factory in Williamsburg yesterday, but took no action on the plan. It will hold another session in a few weeks. The Williamsburg-Greenpoint Preservation Alliance's blog said that the LPC commissioners didn't seem inclined to support such a big addition to the top of the landmarked structure:
The comments that we did hear from the Commissioners made it clear that none of the Commissioners are ready to stand up and support a five-story rooftop addition on the refinery. Some Commissioners seemed to be comfortable with an addition of two or possibly three stories, assuming that such an addition was more architecturally integrated with the historic refinery and the rest of the new development.
Preservationists delivered the most negative reviews of the alteration. The Municipal Art Society's Lisa Kersavage called the plan a "missed opportunity to create something that celebrates the history and architecture of these landmarks." The developers said that the addition is necessary for the project to succeed, while the architect likened it to the Tate Modern in London. Ms. Kersavage and other seemed to take issue with the Tate analogy. "As designed the proposed glass box addition, plunked on top of the landmark, is simply too large and lacks the compositional organization and the arrangement of details that would relate it to the landmark," Ms. Kersavage said. "The architects referenced the Tate Modern’s addition in their presentation to us, but that low-slung and horizontally oriented building has a completely different spatial volume and composition than the Refinery - and that addition is architecturally a much better fit."
Meanwhile, Mary Habstritt of the Williamsburg-Greenpoint Preservation Alliance said:
While believe that there are many positive aspects to this proposal, the project does not come together as a cohesive whole. The various components - the rooftop addition, new windows, new window openings, masonry repairs, bay windows and balconies, storefronts and entries - all seem to be unrelated to one another. And in too many cases, they are unrelated to the historic refinery itself. This brand new landmark deserves a more comprehensive preservation approach.
Commissioners were also said to have appeared skeptical about some other modifications to the building, including the design of proposed retail entrances. Landmarks Chair Robert Tierney strongly urged the developers to find a way to preserve the iconic Domino Sugar sign, which is not included in renderings that have been released. His advice about finding a place for the sign: "Look hard." Since the plant was landmarked last year, the Commission has to approve any changes.
GL Analysis: Domino's Nightmare in Glass Leaves a Bitter Taste
It's hard to know where to start in talking about the renderings that of the New Domino in Williamsburg designed by Rafael Viñoly. It's long been known that this would be one of the biggest mega-projects planned for Brooklyn, with 2,400 units of housing and towers up to 40 stories tall. Until now, however, the only thing available have been renderings showing building outlines. Our initial reaction upon seeing the renderings posted by Brownstoner on Friday was that we were looking at something that was in equal measures like Co-op City and Battery Bark City encircling the deeply altered old Domino Plant. Several days later, no matter how much we try to get used it, it still is not a pleasant aesthetic combination. There is too much density. There is too much building height. The architecture reminds us of an apartment complex one would find on the outskirts of East Berlin, had Communism survived into the 2000s and had the East German leadership become a bit more architecturally adventurous. As for the addition to the Domino Plant, the five-story glass box would make a mockery of the landmarking process.
We can't imagine that anyone on the Landmarks Preservation Commission could possibly vote to approve Williamsburg's Nightmare in Glass with a straight face and a clear conscience. It is an affront to the very concept of historic preservation. As for the overall project, we await clearer representations of Mr. Viñoly's buildings before deciding whether they are truly as distasteful as they appear to be in these early photos. On Friday, a commenter on Curbed said they look like Pez dispensers. We tend to agree.
We hope that community activists gear up to make their voices heard during the land use review process that will start later this year. A good place to start is by challenging this architectural attack on the Domino factory. It will so fundamentally change a landmark that it would almost be less painful if they had torn it down. It is wrong on many different levels.
We will refrain from extended comment on what we will be calling Williamsburg's Nightmare in Glass until Monday. In the meantime, that should offer an indication of our general feelings about the modification to the landmarked Domino Sugar Plant on Kent Avenue that developers are proposing. Yesterday, Brownstoner offered a first look at renderings that had been revealed at a Community Board 1 committee meeting on Thursday night. Today, the Waterfront Preservation Alliance of Greenpoint & Williamsburg has more detailed renderings of the modifications to the factory building itself. (Notably, the renderings do not show the towers that would surround the building.) The Landmarks Preservation Commission will be holding a public hearing about the proposal on Tuesday, February 5 at 2:00 p.m., at the Municipal Building (1 Centre Street), 9th Floor North. According to the Alliance, "the big story" is the rooftop addition to the Filter House ." The firm Beyer Blinder Belle is proposing to put a five-story addition on top of the Filter House. If one includes mechanical bulkheads, the addition will be almost eight stories tall. The group will be meeting on Monday evening to formulate its own position on the Nightmare in Glass. The Beyer Blinder Belle proposal is similar to the glass addition that has been proposed to the landmark Battery Maritime Building in Manhattan, which would fundamentally alter that structure.
Our friends at Brownstoner attended last night's Community Board 1 Landmark Committee meeting and caught the developer's presentation about the New Domino. The photos are either riveting or alarming, depending on one's point of view, and show a project that, as expected, would radically transform Williamsburg. The full set is over at Brownstoner, including the huge glass box that would be added to the top of the landmarked old Domino Sugar Factory. Now that the cat's out of the bag, one hopes the developers post renderings online or make them available so that the public can get a close look at images that don't show the plans for more or for less than they are. Everyone should have a chance to see them as the architect intends them to be before the LPC hearing on February 5.
"New Domino": Glass Box, Towers, No Pedestrian Bridge
Among the stranger details to emerge from a presentation that Rafael Viñoly gave about the planned New Domino development in Williamsburg yesterday was the fact that he wanted to build a pedestrian bridge to Manhattan, but that the developers had said no. Other relevant information sent to Curbed yesterday included a description of the big towers as consisting of masonry at the base and glass curtain walls on the upper floors and of the pedestrian waterfront access as a "sliver" that looked like "a footpath." The Daily News reports this morning that a presentation at a Community Board One Hearing last night included renderings and that "some frowned on the design, calling it too boxy and too big for the Williamsburg waterfront neighborhood."
The LPC attendee who shared the information from the LPC luncheon later added the following via a comment:
in the model he showed...the factory was dwarfed by the two flanking towers. The design for the towers was brick or some sort of red masonry on the bottom third and all glass curtainwall for the top two thirds. He also showed a map as to how this project will influence the area of north williamsburg and create a revitalization. I guess he hasn't been there in a while.
The description included the five-story "glass box" the developers want to add to the top of main Domino building, which is landmarked. We will withhold judgment until renderings are made public, but it would seem that a five-story addition could render the landmarking rather, uh, meaningless. That particular element goes before the LPC on February 5. The plans are supposed to be available today at the Landmarks Commission Office, which is located in the Municipal Building on Centre Street on the Ninth Floor in the North Building. Further details and/or renderings, hopefully, a bit later today.
The campaign to publicly sell the massive project that developers want to build the New Domino on the site of the old Domino Sugar Plant in Williamsburg includes a poll sponsored by the developer that finds that people support the project and say that big buildings are okay in return for affordable housing. The interesting news and analysis are passed on by Norman Oder in his Atlantic Yards Report. He writes, in part:
It's doubtful that any other megadeveloper has outdone Forest City Ratner in the effort to sway public opinion on a controversial project. But the developers behind the proposed New Domino project in Williamsburg, CPC Resources (CPCR) and its silent partner, Isaac Katan, are pushing the envelope in one aspect of the hard sell.
They sponsored their own poll, then ran an advertisement (click to enlarge) based on the poll, offering the unsurprising conclusion that residents in the area around the proposed New Domino site would accept increased density for increased affordable housing.
Those polled also said, not unreasonably, that the lack of affordable housing is a bigger problem than overdevelopment. And, perhaps predictably, longer-term residents were less exercised by the thought of development.
The marketing effort for the project--which does have opposition within the community, particularly to the massive size of the buildings--should be interesting to watch as it unfold.
This is what its creators have called the Living Domino, a reimagining of the old Domino Sugar factory in Williamsburg as a mix of affordable housing, arts space and a "vertical farm." It's on a blog called The Wild Green Yonder and here's a bit of what the creator writes:
The southern two blocks of the site, as well as the upland block, would be devoted to a mixture of public open space and affordable housing...Similar to London’s heralded BedZed development, the housing units would have attached south-facing greenhouses to help heat the building and provide space for growing food.
The recently-landmarked refinery structure (and the iconic concrete-and-glass tower behind it) would serve primarily as an arts and cultural center, along the lines of the vision laid out at dominosugar.org. With hundreds of thousands of square feet between the two buildings, there could be extensive galleries and performing arts space, with plenty of room left over for a public library, offices, or a magnet school.
The roof of the refinery, covered in PV and solar hot water heaters, would serve double duty as a rainwater collector...The northern two blocks of the site would house a Center for Urban Ecology, complete with a prototype vertical farm...There'd be an amphitheater, with the existing figure-8 footprint of two old storage towers as stage. Finally, the five blocks of public waterfront would accommodate a water taxi stop, a plaza, commercial tilapia culture, and a marina.
It will be interesting to see how many iterations the New Domino plan goes and what the final shape of zoning for the site turns out to be. The developers have already spent a significant amount of money on lobbying to try to ensure the 2,400 units of housing they want for the site are constructed.
To get a sense of how much housing and how many people the New Domino project would add to Williamsburg, simply look at the map above. It comes from a post on Wild Green Yonder by Adam Brock. We reproduce it here, because it shows the impact in a graphic way. Simply put, New Domino would double the population of the neighborhood within a quarter-mile radius. The Domino development--which would be in the white rectangular shape on the waterfront--would have about 2,400 units of housing, mostly in towers up to 30-40 stories tall. The first ring in the map, which still has a lot of industrial properties, currently has 2,751 units of housing. The second ring totals 9,778 units. And the third ring out brings the overall total to 28,095 units. So, even viewed in the context of the bigger one-mile radius, Domino would boost population by nearly 10 percent. We only related this in order to show that New Domino would be a significant development with a major impact on schools, police & fire protection and transportation.
GL Analysis: Domino Landmarked, but Is It a Victory?
The main buildings of the old Domino Sugar factory in Williamsburg were landmarked yesterday in a vote that was, ultimately, a formality. As it's one of the very few preservation victories in North Brooklyn recently, we should be jumping up and down and cheering. The buildings weren't demolished before anyone moved to landmark them, for instance, the way the Old Dutch Mustard Factory was leveled to make room for a pedestrian structure. And they didn't go up in a conflagration sparked by a drunk scavenging copper wire who was later said to be in Upstate New York, the way the Greenpoint Terminal Market did. They're still standing, and they'll be standing in the future. This rare waterfront victory of history over demolition is almost enough to bring tears to our eyes.
So, why are we wondering if this is a hollow victory?
For starters, one of the most significant structures on the Domino site--the Adant House--is not on the preservation list. Its loss will be an architectural tragedy no less significant than leveling the old waterfront warehouse in Dumbo or the Beard Street Warehouses in Red Hook. Likewise, the preservation vote doesn't necessarily protect the iconic Domino sign. The developers have said they will try to preserve it, and most likely it will end up sadly detached and re-erected like the Pepsi sign in Long Island City or the Colgate Clock in Jersey City. Even this outcome, however, isn't guaranteed.
The reason for tearing down the Adant building--that it would stand in the way of a new, tall building--leads us the other reason we're concerned: the sheer magnitude of the New Domino plans. When all is said and done in about a decade, the surviving Domino structures will be surrounded by 30-40 story buildings, hemmed in by what will be the biggest Brooklyn development project after Atlantic Yards. The developers are planning 2,400 units of housing. Overall, the project will add so many new residents that it will double the population of the neighborhood within a 1/4 mile radius.
We will await the architect's designs before deciding whether the New Domino is acceptable or a design nightmare. Our initial reaction is that a thicket of 30-40 story buildings is too much for that stretch of the waterfront. More to the point, however, is the fact that Williamsburg and Greenpoint will be taking in many thousands of new residents as dense new developments come on line. No steps are being taking to create the infrastructure to handle them, the most glaring omission of which is a total failure to strategically plan to expand the transportation infrastructure.
While we're glad we won't have to say goodbye to Domino the same way we've bid farewell to so many other buildings in recent years, we're still wondering if that will only turn out to be a technicality. In the end, the preservation of the Domino plant is a victory, but it could turn out to be a very bittersweet, if not hollow, one.
If you haven't already heard, let us be the second or third to tell you that several important buildings that were part of the old Domino Plant in Williamsburg were landmarked today. The vote by the Landmarks Preservation Commission was devoid of drama. The developers had even endorsed landmarking the main building (which for preservation purposes qualified as three structures). One of the most attractive buildings on the site, the Adant House, which runs along Kent Avenue next to the Williamsburg Bridge, was not up for consideration. It sits squarely in the path of a high rise tower. It's unclear whether preservationists will pursue landmarking of the Adant House, which is likely to encounter more serious opposition. More on the overall implications tomorrow.
That Williamsburg group that has floated the idea of turning the old Domino Sugar Plant into an art museum have put up a website to push the idea. The current proposal, of course, suggests up to 2,400 units of housing and buildings up to 30 and 40 stories tall. The old plant itself would be converted to housing, with community uses or retail on the ground floor. The group argues that a museum like the Tate Modern in London would be a big tourism and revenue generator:
Using conservative figures based on the Tate Modern Case Study, the Domino site, with a modest admission price, would bring in between $60mm—$80mm in revenue per annum.(3) These figures do not include revenue generated through businesses outside the Domino site.
We're not sure how this would come to pass--and it's been suggested that it's a "pipe dream"--but the physical similarities between the buildings are certainly striking.
Brooklyn Developers Play the Affordable Housing Advocacy Group Game
Check out the new City Limits for an interesting story on the trend that defines mega-projects in Brooklyn: the recruitment of advocacy groups and community development corporations by developers with promises of affordable housing. Atlantic Yards and developer Bruce Ratner's virtual partnership with ACORN is the Gold Standard and one which the developers of the humongous project proposed for the site of the old Domino Plant in Williamsburg seek to emulate. (It is also a model which Thor Equities will likely put its arms around should its Coney Island project survive in its current iteration.) The model is either genius on the part of developers or--depending on one's point of view--represents a war for the hearts and minds of non-profits between mission-driven advocacy work and the need to grow and survive even if it comes at the expense of mission.
Here's a sample for the story which quotes Williamsburg's Phil DePaolo talking about Churches United for Fair Housing and Rev. Jim O'Shea, which are supporting the massive development:
But to critics like DePaolo, who has lived in Williamsburg since 1979, organizations like Churches United have become "blindsided by crumbs" to the exclusion of displacement and density concerns. "Jim O’Shea is always crying about how people are being priced out, so why team up with these developers? He’s allowing himself to be used just like Bertha Lewis and ACORN with Atlantic Yards," says DePaolo. "These projects aren’t encouraging the creation of stable communities. It’s really a land grab."
O’Shea counters that grassroots organizations should be flexible in negotiating with developers to obtain affordable housing. "Housing for 600 families isn’t crumbs," he says.
The story also deals with Quadriad Development's controversial highrise proposal for Berry Street in Williamsburg and its development alliance with the People's Firehouse in Williamsburg. Definitely worth reading if you're interested in how the mega-project game is played in Brooklyn.
Without question, the proposed "New Domino" development that was formally rolled out to the press at an on-site event last week and which is has its first hearings today in from of the City Planning Commission, would be a huge project. It would include at least 2,200 residential units and several buildings of 30 and 40 stories. It would create serious transportation challenges and significant new density in the neighborhood, among other things. Overall, the $1.3 billion development would take at least eight years to build and be one of the most significant projects on the entire North Brooklyn waterfront. For anything that comes close (at least, in terms of announced projects) one needs to look at the Queens West project in Long Island City.
We say this in order to say that Norman Oder dug deep into the Domino project on Atlantic Yards Report yesterday, drawing parallels between the New Domino and Atlantic Yards. Mr. Oder, was particularly taken by the developer's spin on the project (which emphasized affordable housing, open space and historic preservation) and flipped it on its head:
The press release (not online) issued last week sure sounded good: Plans for the New Domino Set Goal of 30% of Units for Affordable Housing in Mixed-Income Community on the Brooklyn Waterfront Former Industrial Site Will Mirror the City’s Economic and Cultural Diversity and Preserve Historic Architecture in Williamsburg
An equally skewed, though likely not inaccurate, press release might have stated: Plans for the New Domino Include 1540 Million-Dollar Condos on Brooklyn’s Waterfront Four Tall Towers, Minimal Historic Preservation Needed To Achieve Profits for Much-Criticized Silent Partner; Significant Government Subsidies and Rezoning Sought
Mr. Oder's examination of the proposal is very, very long, but anyone interested in gaining a real sense of the development and its impact ought to read it. For instance, he points out that the developers will be seeking to upzone land across Kent Avenue from the main plant site, in addition to upzoning the waterfront site itself. He also notes that the developers spent $400,000 on lobbying the Department of City Planning in 2005 and 2006. The Department is holding "Scoping" hearings today from 2PM-5PM and from 6PM-8:45PM
The email we got along with the link to the YouTube vid above, which is really more of a Powerpoint presentation than a video, said "why can't we have affordable housing and something that gives back to the community, city, etc? it could even be private financing if need be." Yesterday, Lost City described the group advocating for this as "a group of prominent Billyburg arts leaders are trying to stir up support for a plan which would transform the Domino Plant into a world-class art center, a la The Tate Modern in London." He has an extended explanation of why the plan would make sense. And, the idea even makes the jump to a story in today's Sun. Anyone interested in New Domino alternatives should also check out the Waterfront Preservation Alliance's extensive postings on further historic preservation on the property. Right now, the Adant House, which is probably the most attractive historic structure on the property is not up for landmarking and would be demolished. Its loss would be an architectural tragedy for future generations of Brooklyn residents. One doesn't have to have an architecture degree to see how the Adant Building could be renovated and repurposed--say as space for the arts.
