The development of Bushwick’s Rheingold Brewery site lumbers forth, with a tipster sending YIMBY pictures of the foundation being poured at 123 Melrose Street and 28 Stanwix Street. Both properties are projects of All Year Management — one of three developers working on transforming the multi-acre industrial property into residences.
The plan is to turn the two-block-long site into a pair of linked buildings, bound by Stanwix and Melrose streets and Evergreen and Flushing Avenues. In a somewhat uninspired move, the 800- to 900-unit rental complex will be christened “Bushwick II.”
Designed by ODA New York, the project took its inspiration the layout of a European village. “By interrupting the rigid order of a typical NYC street grid and blending it with the sequencing of a European village,” ODA’s founder Eran Chen said in a statement, “the path becomes a meandering courtyard rather than a direct line from a to b." The complex will also include coffee shops and art galleries. (Très Européen!) YIMBY notes the roof will have a huge urban farm, and an 18,000-square-foot park will divide the project. Affordable housing has been an ongoing concern at the site, with residents calling upon developers to commit to affordable units since the beginning. As of right now, 20 percent of the Bushwick II units will rent below market.
ODA is busy in Bushwick these days. They’re the jagged donut-looking building at 10 Monteith Street, another former Rheingold site being developed by Rabsky Group. Rabsky plans to earmark 20 percent of apartments as affordable housing.