Williamsburg

How sweet it is: Domino Sugar site’s 325 Kent Ave. is looking fine

Eye On Real Estate

June 28, 2017 By Lore Croghan Brooklyn Daily Eagle
That's 325 Kent Ave. shining bright like a diamond, as Rihanna would say. The landmarked Domino Sugar building stands beside it. Eagle photo by Lore Croghan
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Every day, it looks more like the renderings.

You can see it when you’re on the NYC Ferry sailing along the Williamsburg shoreline — a gigantic squared-off donut with a copper facade on the bottom and a zinc facade on top. Its shiny reflection flashes on the East River in early-evening sunlight.

This is 325 Kent Ave., which Two Trees Management is constructing at the 11-acre Domino Sugar Refinery site.

It is the first building the Walentas family firm is opening at the mega-project.

The 16-story rental property with frontage on South 3rd and South 4th streets was designed by high-profile SHoP Architects. It has 522 apartments.

Twenty percent of them — 104, to be specific — are affordable units for low-income residents. More than 87,000 applications were handed into the lottery for those apartments.

Leasing is underway on the market-rate units, so we thought we should take fresh photos of the progress that has been made on 325 Kent Ave.’s construction. We also got renderings from the developer of amenities that are planned.

The new rental-apartment building is one of four that will be constructed on the Domino site. They will have a total of about 2,800 units, more than 700 of them affordable.

And a total of 500,000 square feet of office space is planned on the site — where more than 20 structures were demolished to make way for development.

A landmarked refinery building will be adaptively reused to create 380,000 square feet of the office space.   

Construction crews are hard at work on six-acre Domino Park. Two Trees announced that the waterfront park, which will feature industrial artifacts such as syrup tanks and gantry cranes, will be completed in 2018.

Two-bedroom apartments for $5,195 per month

If you’re planning on making your own visit to 325 Kent Ave., be sure to stop by the green space at 320 Kent Ave. that North Brooklyn Farms is running.

It is open to the public on Tuesdays through Sundays unless a private event is being held there. You can sit at a picnic table among flowers and perfect rows of winter kale and gaze at the new apartment building, which is directly across the street.

In addition to the farm’s green space, the waterfront site across from 325 Kent Ave. is also occupied by a bike park whose address is 318 Kent Ave.

As a bonus, the green space has an Instagram-worthy sculpture by artist Tom Fruin called “Kolonihavehus,” which is a garden house made of bright plexiglas panels and steel.

As another bonus, from the vantage point of the green space you can get a close look at Domino’s 1880s-vintage brick refinery, whose address is 292-314 Kent Ave. As preservation-minded Brooklynites recall, it’s known as the Havemeyers & Elder Filter, Pan & Finishing House.

A giant yellow neon sign that says “Domino Sugar” will be placed on the former refinery as part of its renovation and transformation into an office building. The iconic sign stood on a building that was demolished to make way for development.

Anyway. About the monthly rents at 325 Kent Ave.

The New York Times and Curbed.com reported that they start at $2,495 for studios, $3,250 for one-bedrooms and $5,195 for two-bedrooms.

The other day, when we checked 325 Kent Ave.’s  marketing website, there was a studio available for $2,288 per month.

 

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