RED HOOK — A huge Norman Foster-designed complex is being planned for the Red Hook waterfront, according to a new report.
Thor Equities is looking to build more than 600,000 square-feet of offices and 23,000 square-feet of retail and restaurants, according to Bloomberg Technology.
Thor plans to build the four-story complex at the former Revere Sugar Refinery site, which the developer purchased for $40 million in 2005, Curbed reports. The sugar factory had been in operation for more than a century before it was shuttered and then sat abandoned for years. In recent years the site has been used as a commercial parking lot.
Designed by Norman Foster, of Foster + Partners, the architect behind London's Gherkin building, it would feature a public waterfront esplanade, a courtyard and terraces, and would be surrounded by water on three sides, Bloomberg reports.
News of the complex has surfaced as the city makes its own plans to boost transportation services in the neighborhood that lacks a subway stop.
Mayor Bill de Blasio's proposed 16-mile streetcar system, known as The BQX, would connect Red Hook with waterfront neighborhoods in Brooklyn and Queens. Construction is expected to begin in 2019, though officials are still in the early stages of meeting local communities to collect feedback on the project.
The mayor has also moved forward on plans for a Citywide Ferry Service that could add a ferry dock to the neighborhood. The site of the Citywide Ferry dock, however, is not yet known. The Thor site is next door to IKEA, which subsidizes New York Water Taxi ferry service from its store at the Erie Basin to Pier 11 at Wall Street in Manhattan.
With the new plans, Thor Equities joins Italian developer Est4te Four, which has discussed similar plans for a 1.1 million square-foot office space and "manufacturing collective" in the neighborhood closer to the Atlantic Basin.
Officials with Thor could not be reached for comment Thursday morning.
