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City Seeks Central Brooklyn Test Kitchen After 3rd Ward Closes

By Sonja Sharp | November 19, 2013 10:38am
 The city is calling for new proposals for a culinary incubator in Brooklyn, after the plans for one at 1000 Dean St. fell through.
The city is calling for new proposals for a culinary incubator in Brooklyn, after the plans for one at 1000 Dean St. fell through.
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DNAinfo/Sonja Sharp

CROWN HEIGHTS  — The city is seeking proposals for a culinary incubator and test kitchen in central Brooklyn — after the one that Bushwick's 3rd Ward had planned to open at 1000 Dean St. fell through, officials said.

"We are re-RFPing to find a new operator for the incubator," Economic Development Corporation spokesman Ian Fried told DNAinfo New York in an email. "We are looking for a new operator for a similar type of space."

In February, the EDC and Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz awarded $1.5 million to 3rd Ward to launch the giant test kitchen on Dean Street, which was intended to help develop culinary start-ups in the heart of foodie Brooklyn. 

Jason Goodman, owner of 3rd Ward, had already secured a liquor license for the new Dean Street space when the original 3rd Ward co-working space and arts venue in Bushwick shuttered suddenly this fall

The closure rankled many longtime 3rd Ward members who were not issued refunds, and threw 3rd Ward's other projects at 1000 Dean St. and in Philadelphia into question. 

"They’ve left people in the lurch," a source close to the project told DNAinfo New York in October. "They’re quite a toxic brand." 

The new RFP calls for test kitchen proposals in Crown Heights, Bed-Stuy, Brownsville and East New York, and seeks the same "location parameters" as the original RFP.

Proposals are due Dec. 4, and the EDC did not immediately give a timeline for when they would choose a new organization to run the incubator.

Goodman and 1000 Dean St. operator Jonathan Butler did not return emails for comment. But Butler told the New York Observer that he and his partners were already eyeing replacements for the troubled 3rd Ward on Dean Street.