Say hello to The Wheeler: Today, Tishman Speyer revealed the plans for its forthcoming renovation of the Macy’s department store on Fulton Street in Downtown Brooklyn, and as expected, it’ll transform the space above the shop into a 620,000-square-foot “creative office hub,” which seem to be all the rage for developers these days.
A bit of backstory: In 2015, Tishman Speyer struck a $270 million deal with Macy’s to redevelop the company’s distressed Downtown Brooklyn store, with a glassy new addition to the historic structure as part of the plan. Several renderings of the new space were revealed about a year ago, but Tishman and Macy’s have remained quiet on plans since then, even as work on the historic structures has progressed.
But today, Tishman unleashed a whole bunch of information on the project. For instance: the new buildings will be a collaboration between Shimoda Design Group—the firm’s first NYC project, according to Tishman—and Perkins Eastman.
According to a press release, the 10-story building that will rise above Macy’s will feature “Brooklyn’s largest floorplate, 16-foot ceilings on each floor, an acre of outdoor space across a series of gardened terraces and roof decks, a dedicated amenity floor,” along with the expected lovely views of Lower Manhattan, the rest of Brooklyn, and beyond. The redesign will keep historic details from the two buildings that will make up the complex: one built in the 1870s, which will get the glassy topper, and the Art Deco building that’s home to Macy’s. The store will continue to occupy the first four floors.
And the name “The Wheeler” has some historical context: it’s a nod to 19th-century developer Andrew Wheeler, who was responsible for one of the original structures that will be incorporated into the new project.
While plans for the building are currently in place, it’s missing one crucial thing: tenants. According to the New York Times, no anchor tenant has signed on for the space yet, though the timeline puts it at being completed by 2019. But as the Times notes, of the 17 million square feet of office space throughout Downtown Brooklyn, just three percent stands vacant.
“We get calls from companies wanting to move to Downtown Brooklyn, but with the lowest commercial vacancy rate in the city, there is nothing available,” Regina Myer, president of the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership, told the Times.
But there’ll be some competition, as the area is set to receive at least another two to three million square feet of office space in coming years. Forest City Ratner and JEMB Realty’s One Willoughby Square is on the rise, and the Pioneer Building on Flatbush Avenue are just two examples, offering similar amenities and attempting to lure the same so-called “creative” companies that the Wheeler is presumably going after.
“Twenty-first-century real estate is defined by a ‘live-work-play’ dynamic,” Rob Speyer, the president of Tishman Speyer told the Times. “Brooklyn has mastered ‘live-play,’ but now it needs world-class office space for ‘work.’” It remains to be seen, then, how that will play out as the Wheeler progresses.
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