Fort Greene

Brooklyn Cultural District building boom: A tale of two apartment developments

Eye On Real Estate

March 18, 2015 By Lore Croghan Brooklyn Daily Eagle
The Ashland is rising at 250 Ashland Place on the corner of Fulton Street. The Theatre for a New Audience is at left. Eagle photo by Rob Abruzzese
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Construction is percolating at development sites in a favorite arts-lovers’ neighborhood, the Brooklyn Cultural District.

This is the mini-neighborhood surrounding the Brooklyn Academy of Music that until recently was known as the BAM Cultural District.

We use the latter name as well when writing about the area — to remind readers of the long years of effort that BAM’s former executive director Harvey Lichtenstein put in as the chairman of the BAM Local Development Corp., which worked with the city to bring the cultural district into being.

We checked up on several sites the other day with photographer colleague Rob Abruzzese. Here’s what you should know:

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The Ashland, 250 Ashland Place

A new neighbor is sprouting nicely next to the Shakespeare theatre.

The structural framework of a new apartment building is rising several floors above a construction fence on the corner of Fulton Street and Ashland Place next to the Theatre for a New Audience.

Crews are up there working hard to build the Gotham Organization’s rental-apartment tower, which will be called the Ashland. Readers will remember this development site as 598 Fulton St. The developer is now using 250 Ashland Place as its address.

The designer is FXFOWLE Architects.

The 586 unit-building will be 52 stories tall, a spokeswoman for the developer confirmed. Nearly 50% of the apartments will be affordable-housing units, and there will be 10,800 square feet of retail space and 8,000 square feet of office space for cultural institutions, as we previously reported.


EyeBAM, 280 Ashland Place

Something’s Coming, Something Good (like in “West Side Story”) — we’re not sure exactly when.

The parking facility at 280 Ashland Place, which is next door to Mark Morris Dance Center, stopped operating in February. The city Buildings Department issued a permit to remove the parking attendant’s booth.

So when will construction crews start work on the site of EyeBAM, Jonathan Rose Cos.’ planned rental-apartment building with arts facilities?

We don’t know. An executive at the firm told us via email, “Regretfully, we cannot comment on this project until the closing is completed, which we anticipate happening shortly.”

The city is selling the site to Rose’s firm. The city also was the seller of the other two sites in the Brooklyn Cultural District where apartments are being built, 250 Ashland Place and 286 Ashland Place.

As previously reported, EyeBAM will be a 12-story apartment building with 40% of the units used as affordable housing and two cultural facilities, Eyebeam Art + Technology Center and Science Gallery International.

According to city Buildings Department filings, there will be 116 apartments. The documents identify the site as 15 Lafayette Ave. with 270-280 Ashland Place as a second address.

EyeBAM was designed by Dattner Architects in association with Bernheimer Architecture.


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