BAM Area Is Jumping with Development Projects
By Dennis Holt
It hasn’t gotten any attention yet, but if Flatbush Avenue building owner Al Atara can pull it off, there will be a Brooklyn Arts and Design Arena as part of the emerging BAM Cultural District.

Atara envisions an incubator for beginning architects and designers, which he believes is needed in Brooklyn. He owns 33 Flatbush Ave., the old Corn Exchange Bank building across the street from the Con Edison building. He hopes to commit about 65,000 square feet of his seven-story building for that purpose.

This initiative by Atara is exactly what former BAM maestro Harvey Lichtenstein had in mind when he came up with the idea of a Brooklyn arts and cultural district in the general BAM area.

This is only the latest in a series of ideas that have been hatched for physically fleshing out this new district, as shown by a summary report issued by the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership.

So far, 11 separate projects have been announced, eight of which have a capital dollar amount of almost $550 million. This does not include the city funding of a complete overhaul of the former Strand Theater for BRIC, nor the creation of a broad new public plaza around Flatbush Avenue, Ashland Place and Lafayette Avenue.

These projects include the Theatre for a New Audience, which will be built next to the Mark Morris Dance Studio facing Lafayette Avenue. Facing Rockwell Place between Fulton and Lafayette will be Danspace Theater, on top of which will be a 150 unit residential complex.

In that same trapezoid-shaped block, a 200-unit residential building is planned, half of which will be devoted to affordable housing.

In the same block as 33 Flatbush Ave., a new 36-unit condo, called Rockwell Place, will be rise at 55 Flatbush Ave. At 29 Flatbush Ave., The Dermot Company is planning to create a 118-unit rental development, 20 percent of which will be affordable housing along with stores on the ground floor. Also on this block, Integrated Capital is hoping to erect a 37-unit apartment building with studios, one-bedroom and two-bedroom apartments, along with 3,000 square feet of retail.

As was previously announced, the old Williamsburgh Bank building, now known as One Hanson Place, is being converted to a 189-unit apartment building with about 50,000 square feet of space. Borders will be the primary retail tenant.

And the Clarett Group is putting the finishing touches on an attractive new 28-story building, the Forte, with 108 market-rate condos along with 10,000 square feet of retail. This building stands at the corner of Fulton and Ashland Place.

As elsewhere in Downtown Brooklyn, much of the development effort under way is designed to living space in an area where people hadn’t even thought about living before. More than 830 housing units, for as many as 2,500 people, are being created within the new BAM Cultural District.

Finally, the Salvation Army may create a theater in the 34,000 square foot building it owns directly behind BAM.

© Brooklyn Daily Eagle 2007
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