Sunset Park is the next neighborhood bracing for a mega-development akin to Queens' Flushing Commons and the Upper West Side's Riverside Center. Brooklyn Paper reports that a group of developers have signed on to erect a massive mixed-use project in the southern Brooklyn neighborhood on Eighth Avenue between 61st and 64th streets. Aptly named Eighth Avenue Center, the new development, designed by Raymond Chan, will have a three-story Chelsea Market-style retail space at its base that will cover some 167,000-square-feet or, as BP puts it, about three football fields. Above it will rise a 10-story, 150-room hotel, two 15-story residential towers with some 350 apartments between them, and a 17-story office tower. The tallest nearby buildings top out at about eight stories, so needless to say, the development's scale is largely unprecedented for the neighborhood.
BP says that site will also have a public green space and sculpture garden atop the retail structure's roof, a library, computer lab, and room for a pre-kindergarten program that "will serve the area's burgeoning immigrant population."
The idea for a development at the lot to the scale of Eighth Avenue Center isn't a new one; a proposal for the site made waves in 2007 when the land's previous owner Andrew Kohen announced plans to erect a Home Depot and an 11-story residential building. Kohen received a zoning variance for the industrial parcel in 2007, but ended up selling the land off before realizing the project. Before Kohen sold, the Community Board sided with the project. All it took was Kohen's agreement to include 20-percent of housing as affordable. Whether the CB will stand with the new development has yet to be seen.
Whether or not Chelsea Market developer Jamestown, who has expressed interest in bringing a similar market to nearby Industry City, is involved in the project is unknown. Curbed has reach out for comment.
· Mega-development coming to Sunset Park [BP]
· All Sunset Park coverage [Curbed]
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