In Mid-April, Real Estate Editor Linda Collins and photographer Don Evans provided Brooklyn Eagle readers with an update on all the building going on in downtown Brooklyn. With the overall economy in a tailspin, one could almost expect to see skeletons, shells, holes in the ground and tumbleweeds blowing down empty streets. Not so, of course.

If there is a surprise, it’s that there are about 14 downtown building projects still underway. These are all residential projects (with the expected street level retail) and do not include some projects on Atlantic Avenue or in DUMBO. Nor is Atlantic Yards or BAM Cultural District projects included: those will be tomorrow’s stories.

There are two projects that have been impacted, one of which might be stirring again before long. This is the mighty City Point development, which was once expected to be the tallest building in Brooklyn.

This newspaper has learned that the developers are reconsidering the project design which might lead to more than one large building, but perhaps two or three smaller ones each with a devoted purpose...office, residential, retail.

No one really knows right now when economic conditions will improve and people will begin to look for different and new places to live, like downtown Brooklyn. It must be remembered that when all the negative smoke clears, the appeal to live in downtown Brooklyn will still be there. It has earned its way onto the A plus list.

But not enough people, public people in particular, are paying much attention to what all this building could lead to. If you look at the potential number of new housing units being built or already in place, there is the possibility that 12,000 to 15,000 additional people will be living in downtown Brooklyn.

The real world remains pretty much the same. Downtown Brooklyn cannot physically change much — they can make Flatbush Avenue better, and Fulton Street, and they will. But they cannot change the street grid much or the sidewalks and think of 12,000 more people milling around in a not very large area.

This challenge is not because people were asleep at the wheel: when the downtown Brooklyn zoning plan was created, no one figured that the new zoning would lead to so much housing being built. The assumptions were that most of the people would be added to downtown as transients — coming or going to work and the like.

A permanent new population was not envisioned so no one gave much thought to narrow sidewalks and streets, critical bus schedules, impact on subway stops and the usual impact of a whole bunch of new people moving around.

That now clearly has to be done and done by city agencies and the Transit Authority or we’ll be in a fine pickle. If nothing else, just imagine Willoughby Street with all the new adjacent hotels and major housing developments — Clarett, BelTel, and City Point. Picture all that parking underneath the new park and the narrow streets those cars will have to use. Yeah, problems! So it’s time to wring brains, not hands.

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