One year in, Brooklyn Heights Library tower almost a third of final height

280 Cadman Plaza West Marketing Apartments as ‘One Clinton’

August 14, 2018 By Mary Frost Brooklyn Daily Eagle

One year into construction, the 36-story tower that is going up on the site of the former Brooklyn Heights Library branch has reached about a third of its planned height. Photo by Mary Frost

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It’s exactly one year since construction began at 280 Cadman Plaza West, the redevelopment of the site of the Brooklyn Heights branch of the Brooklyn Public Library (BPL).

This week, crews are pouring concrete to form the 11th floor and the mezzanine of the “C” section (the southern portion next to 1 Pierrepont) of the tower, according to a release from developer Hudson Companies, which bought the site for $52 million.

Within the next week or two, the tower will be about a third of its planned height of 36 stories.

The building will include a new 26,620-square-foot library, 134 condominium units and two retail spaces on Clinton Street. The condos are being marketed as One Clinton. According to The Real Deal, the price for condos will average out to $3.6 million apiece.

As part of the project, 114 units of affordable housing will be built in Clinton Hill.

The original library branch was demolished in April 2017 after a prolonged and bitter fight by advocacy groups to keep it open. Concerns included already overcrowded Heights schools, the shrinkage of public library space and the off-siting of the affordable housing component, but the deal was endorsed by the Brooklyn Heights Association. The sale was said to generate roughly $40 million towards $300 million of Brooklyn Public Library’s capital repair needs.

The City Council gave the project the green light after Councilmember Stephen Levin (Brooklyn Heights, Downtown) worked out more perks for the community, including more floor space in the rebuilt (though smaller overall) branch, a STEM lab for students and a small DUMBO branch library.

As part of the deal, Hudson Companies redeveloped the social hall of Our Lady of Lebanon Maronite Cathedral on Remsen Street into a temporary library branch, which is now in operation.

The tower is expected to be completed by spring 2020.

Besides working on the 11th floor, crews will also be installing exterior block on the second and third floors in the coming week or two, according to Hudson. No street closures are anticipated.