Dive Brief:
- A new mixed-use tower in the New York City's Brooklyn borough is scheduled to come online in October 2020, and the Marvel Architects-designed building is about 65% bigger than originally planned, according to CityRealty.
- Permits for the 540 Fulton structure were first filed in 2016 when developers Jenel Management indicated that the building would max out at 19 stories and 200,000 square feet. Current plans, however, show a 511-foot-tall high-rise with more than 330,000 square feet. The commercial and retail component on the first eight floors will take up 96,592 square feet and the living units, reported to be rentals based on their average 720-square-foot size, will encompass 236,869 square feet.
- In a time when developers are looking to lure millennials and other city dwellers with high-end amenity packages, the Fulton Street building is scaled back with only bike rooms, terraces, storage and package rooms, a gym, business center and a rooftop lounge included in the extras offered to residents.
Dive Insight:
The information in building permits and other project documents filed with local authorities are expectedly lackluster, so they don't reflect the amenities that aren't part of the building's structure like concierge services or the extras offered as part of the rooftop deck. Even so, 540 Fulton is definitely on a smaller scale when compared to what's in the works for the borough's Coney Island.
On tap for the community once best known for its amusement park offerings are new mixed-use projects, including the three-block, 1,000-unit Taconic Investment Partners project, which will have 80,000 square feet of office space and 150,000 square feet of retail. Also coming soon will be Ocean Dreams, a 400-unit residential complex. The relatively low price of land has sent developers scrambling to snap up property there, and Coney Island is currently being eyed for a new South Brooklyn office hub. Once considered too far from Manhattan to be a viable living option for some, alternative transportation services like Uber and Lyft, as well as an hour's subway trip, have put the community in the same range as other New York metro suburbs.
But not everyone is happy about the new development in some parts of Brooklyn. Alloy Development is planning to build a 74-story, 1,000-foot-tall residential building there, and lovers of the nearby brownstones and Victorian homes are complaining that the structure will not fit in with the aesthetic or density of the neighborhood. Whether it turns into a legal battle is still unknown, but activists could be spurred on by the success of Manhattan's Sutton Place residents whose rezoning efforts against high-density high-rises has stalled at least one project.
