Quantcast

The DNAinfo archives brought to you by WNYC.
Read the press release here.

1.5M-Square-Foot Office Tower Planned Opposite Barclays Center, Report Says

 Developers at Greenland Forest City Partners are planning to build an office tower at this site across from the Barclays Center, currently occupied by a Modell's and a P.C. Richard & Son.
Developers at Greenland Forest City Partners are planning to build an office tower at this site across from the Barclays Center, currently occupied by a Modell's and a P.C. Richard & Son.
View Full Caption
DNAinfo/Rachel Holliday Smith

BROOKLYN — The developers behind the 22-acre Pacific Park complex, once known as Atlantic Yards, are reportedly looking to add a 1.5 million-square-foot office tower to the site, to be located across the street from the Barclays Center.

The tower at 590 Atlantic Ave. would be the largest ever built in Brooklyn, according to a report about the project by Crain’s, made possible by the transfer of about 1.1 million square feet of air rights to the site by developer Greenland Forest City Partners.

GFCP confirmed the company is looking to use development rights from the Barclays Center Plaza — the triangular open space located directly in front of the Brooklyn Nets' arena — to complete an office building at the Atlantic Avenue location, currently occupied by a Modell’s store and P.C. Richard & Son. The tower’s height and density, however, have not been settled, the company said.

“We think the time is right for the borough to have an iconic office building for the new Brooklyn economy and the thousands of jobs it will bring to the doorstep of one of the city's largest transit hubs,” a GFCP spokeswoman said.

The plan for the office building will require an amendment to the General Project Plan for Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park, to be approved by the Empire State Development Corp., the state agency that oversees the project. GFCP also said an environmental impact statement for the building will be needed before construction can begin.

Originally, the office tower site was approved in 2006 to be a maximum of 439,050 square feet, according to a report by the Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park Report regarding pending eminent domain proceedings for Modell’s and P.C. Richard & Son.

Though the exact scope of the office building is up in the air, if the reported 1.5-million-square-foot envelope is approved, the new tower could bring a distinctly Manhattan-like aspect to the corner of Flatbush and Atlantic avenues. An executive at Forest City Ratner once likened the project to the Time Warner Center. Similarly sized buildings include One Vanderbilt (1.7 million square feet), 10 Hudson Yards (at 1.8 million square feet) and 250 South St., reportedly sized between 1.1 and 1.3 million square feet.

The president of the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership, Tucker Reed, cheered the plan on Tuesday, saying the GFCP tower is exactly what the borough needs as the office vacancy downtown has dropped to “a historic low” of 1.6 percent.

“We risk losing significant investment and further job growth in downtown Brooklyn if additional inventory does not come online in the immediate future,” he said in a statement provided by the Pacific Park developers.