Construction Update: Greenpoint

Eye On Real Estate

March 11, 2015 By Lore Croghan Brooklyn Daily Eagle

A Bobcat buzzes by workers at 21 Commercial St., the first building that's being constructed at the massive Greenpoint Landing development. Eagle photos by Lore Croghan

Share this:

Keep On Truckin’, Baby.

(Remember that Temptations song?)

Construction crews at Brooklyn development sites were toiling throughout the winter, making the most of every moment that it wasn’t snowing, sleeting or raining hard enough to make their job sites dangerous.

When they were out working on important new buildings, we weren’t sitting by the fireside poring over poetry books. Isn’t that why clothing companies sell ankle-length down coats with hoods — so real-estate obsessed Brooklynites can check up on construction projects without fear of frostbite?

Though things have shaped up in the past couple days, March came in like a lion, and was quite ugly when we did our construction site check-ups.

So, sadly, the skies are gray in our photos. But they will give you a sense of how several interesting developments are shaping up.

Here’s what we saw in Greenpoint:

Greenpoint Landing’s 21 Commercial St.

We hope the stellar views are a distraction when temperatures drop.

Workers at 21 Commercial St. can see the Chrysler Building, the Empire State Building and other stars of the Midtown Manhattan skyline from their Greenpoint waterfront vantage point.

They are in the early stages of constructing the first apartment building at Greenpoint Landing, Park Tower Group’s mega-project. When we stopped by the other day, steel beams rose above the construction fence. Workers were building a wall.

The six-story building will have 93 apartments and ground-floor commercial space, city Buildings Department filings indicate. All the units will be affordable housing.

At Greenpoint Landing, 5,500 apartments are planned, plus a park and a school.

P.S.: We also swung by the site of what will be another Greenpoint Landing affordable-housing building, 33 Eagle St. The day we were there, a silent bulldozer sat on the empty snow-covered lot.

Harte & Co. Building, 280 Franklin St.

It’s polluted. It’s more raggedy-looking than ever. But this former factory has a fine silhouette, as befits its Arte Moderne pedigree.

So gaze on it — soon it might be gone.

Greenpoint’s curvy-cornered, glass-block-covered Harte & Co. building at 280 Franklin St., which is not landmarked, is part of a complex of buildings that was sold last year. As we previously reported, the purchasers plan to build 400 apartments there.

Last summer, they got the city Buildings Department’s approval to demolish several of the buildings, which have Dupont or Clay Street addresses. Those buildings are still standing, too — for now.

We called and emailed Elmhurst, Queens-based developer Bo Jin Zhu — who signed a $25 million mortgage for the property and is ID’d in city Buildings Department records as the president of purchasing entity Dupont Street Developers LLC.

We wanted to ask if any of 280 Franklin’s façade will be incorporated into the design of the residential development. As we previously reported, that option had been discussed as a possibility before Zhu became involved in the project.

Several days after we made our queries, an owner’s rep contacted us and scheduled a meeting to tell us about the planned development. We will share what we find out in a follow-up story.