NEW YORK | Avalon Willoughby West | 596 FT | 58 FLOORS

[NYguy]

http://www.brooklyneagle.com/categor..._id=5&id=29472

Downtown Brooklyn’s Newest ‘Tallest’ To Rise at Willoughby and Bridge streets
58-Story Avalon Willoughby West Will Have 860 Rental Units, Retail Space and Parking


This rendering is not the final design but an earlier version of the new Avalon Willoughby West
at 388 Bridge St. in Downtown Brooklyn.


by Linda Collins
07-13-2009


DOWNTOWN BROOKLYN — The battle of the “tallest” buildings in Downtown Brooklyn continues with the filing last week for a 58-story residential tower on Willoughby Street between Bridge and Duffield streets.

AvalonBay Communities, already building a major complex nearby at Myrtle Avenue, Gold Street and Flatbush Avenue Extension called Avalon Fort Greene, filed the permit application with the Department of Buildings for what may be called Avalon Willoughby West, according to Stephanie Cuba, project manager for AvalonBay.

The filing comes on the tail of a story in the Eagle in June about the topping out of the 51-story tower by The Clarett Group at 111 Lawrence St. Known as “The Brooklyner,” it will be two feet taller than the iconic — and previously tallest — 512-foot Williamsburgh Savings Bank building, a residential conversion now known as One Hanson Place.

“We are big believers in Downtown Brooklyn. We think it’s a great community,” said Cuba. Noting that the area has been an untapped market Cuba said she is well aware of the four hotels in various stages of development around the corner on Duffield St.

“We see a big demand for apartments,” she said.

Cuba said she is not sure of a starting date — it depends on the Department of Buildings (DOB) — but demolition of the existing buildings and construction on the new building should begin within a year, with completion estimated to take two years.

The 58-story tower will contain 860 rental units plus street level retail, according to Cuba. Further details are not known at this time and the final design — by SLCE Architects of Manhattan — is not completed.

The Department of Buildings application notes that the new tower will be 596 feet tall, 869,066 square feet and will have parking for 345 cars. It also notes that 11 original tax lots will be merged to create the development.

Although unconfirmed by AvalonBay, PropertyShark.com documents show the properties were acquired for close to $27. 5 million.

As previously reported, the Avalon Fort Greene project at Myrtle and Gold is 393 feet tall with 627 apartments, street level retail, a large outdoor plaza and underground parking. The design is by Perkins Eastman Architects.

[NYguy]

curbed.com

Brooklyn's New Tallest Building Already Facing Competition



The new 51-story rental tower The Brooklyner boasts that it's Brooklyn's tallest building—edging out the iconic One Hanson Place clock tower by a mere two feet—but its hold on the title may, irony alert, be short. The Brooklyn Eagle reports that megadeveloper AvalonBay has filed bulding plans for a 58-story residential tower on Willoughby Street between Bridge and Duffield Streets, across the street from BellTel Lofts.

At 596 feet tall, Avalon Willoughby West (tentative title) would beat out The Brooklyner by 82 feet. Slated for 860 rental units, the tower could get started within a year, once demolition of the existing buildings on the site—it took the combination of 11 lots to assemble this thing—wraps up. The long-rumored Avalon project has been through many designs, and the latest is one from SLCE Architects, though the Eagle reports it's not final. Things are lookin' up in Downtown Brooklyn.

[Swede]

Brooklyn is adding a lot of towers. I'd love to see the new design for this one, and an aerial with at least its site marked (having only been to DT Brooklyn for a couple of hours total in my life ).

[NYguy]

Originally Posted by Swede

Brooklyn is adding a lot of towers. I'd love to see the new design for this one, and an aerial with at least its site marked (having only been to DT Brooklyn for a couple of hours total in my life ).

I'm just glad it's something taller than the new tallest in Brooklyn. This tower will probably top 600 ft, but I won't be happy until Brooklyn has at least one 700 footer. We can go up from there.

[Dac150]

Keep them coming. I'm just waiting to see Trump wanting to build 'Brookyln's Tallest'. Maybe he'll have better luck because after all that's where he started out.

[hunser]

Originally Posted by Dac150

Keep them coming. I'm just waiting to see Trump wanting to build 'Brookyln's Tallest'. Maybe he'll have better luck because after all that's where he started out.

shouldn't be that hard for trump to build a building >200m. maybe a new TWT in white

[NYguy]

http://www.brooklynpaper.com/stories...28_towers.html

Edifice complex as two towers compete to be the boro’s biggest

_


By Ben Muessig
July 16, 2009


Is this Downtown Brooklyn or Downtown Dubai?!?

With news that a proposed 57-story skyscraper will rise even higher than the recently topped off, current tallest building in Brooklyn, the Clarett Group’s 51-story “Brooklyner” on Lawrence Street in Downtown, locals can hardly tell anymore.

Builders of the new 596-foot high-rise, which will include 861 rental apartments, claim they were not intending to start a skyscraper race in Downtown, where the 514-foot Clarett tower is just 24 inches taller than the Williamsburgh Savings Bank, which had held the title as the borough’s tallest since 1929.

“At that site, the height was necessary based on the amount of density and the relatively small footprint that we had,” said Fred Harris, a senior vice president of development for AvalonBay Communities, the developer of the so-called “Avalon Willoughby West.”

If it is ever built, it would top the “Brooklyner” — whose epic size inspired at least one Kings County resident to call it “Kilimanjaro” — by 82 feet.

Despite the ailing real estate market, Harris told The Brooklyn Paper that he is confident there will be demand for the skyscraping rental project designed by SLCE Architects, details of which were first reported this week by the Brooklyn Daily Eagle.

“Brooklyn had a condo wave, and we know what’s happened to all the condos at the moment,” he said. “But Brooklyn hasn’t had a significant number of new rentals in a long time. I’m feeling good [about this project].”

To make room for the skyscraper — which will boast ground floor retail space and a parking garage for 345 vehicles — AvalonBay is in the process of acquiring low-rise properties on Willoughby between Bridge and Duffield streets from Al Laboz’s United American Land. The buildings currently feature a temporary art installation in their windows (see sidebar).

The skyscraper is planned to rise just blocks from the company’s 42-story Myrtle Avenue Fort Greene skyscraper, the Avalon Fort Greene, which the developers will use as a guinea pig to determine the cost to rent an apartment in the tallest building in the borough.

“We’ll study the first one,” said Harris, who noted that construction on the Downtown development could begin next year. “We’ll go to school on it. If we find that certain floor plan features, or certain amenities are really key in this sub market, we’ll move forward with them.”

Skyscraper experts say that Brooklyn really is in the midst of a battle for the tallest — though it is hardly a skirmish compared to the war between 40 Wall Street, the Chrysler Building, and the Empire State Building that raged in Manhattan 80 years ago.

“It’s comparable, but to a lesser scale,” said John Tauranac, author “The Empire State Building: The Making of a Landmark.”

“It’s not for the world’s tallest record, but there is advantage of doing the biggest, the fattest, or the smallest,” he said. “It gets into the newspapers.”


©2009 The Brooklyn Paper

[hunser]

Originally Posted by NYguy

..., claim they were not intending to start a skyscraper race in Downtown, ...

a skyscraper race in brooklyn would be great but in these times only a dream. and i'm with nyguy, a 700 footer would be the right start for a new skycraper area in downtown brooklyn.