Three new residential towers—each resembling an asymmetrical stack of boxes—are set to spring up along Williamsburg’s waterfront, in an area once occupied by factories and shipyards in New York's industrial heyday.
Funded by former-governor-turned-real-estate-developer Eliot Spitzer, the luxury development—now under construction at 416-420 Kent Avenue—will contain a mix of studio, one- and two-bedroom leasable apartments totaling 857 residences, a fifth of which have been earmarked for affordable housing.
Slated to be completed in 2018, the compound—which broke ground last December—will feature 77,000 square feet of outdoor space, including two pools and a continuation of the existing esplanade along the East River, which will serve as a riverside park and upland link between Kent Avenue and the waterfront. (For now, the developer has chosen to remain mum about any other amenities the triptych will boast.)
A series of setbacks and cantilevers, the 22-story glass structures—which will overlook the Williamsburg Bridge and East River to the north and downtown Manhattan to the east—were strategically sculpted to provide maximum views, with 80% of the apartments planned to boast “corner unit” layouts.
“By using two standard floor plans—mirrors of each other—and flipping them in different directions around the central axis of each tower’s mass, [we created] three distinct, multidimensional facades, each filled with mid-floor ‘corner’ units,” ODA New York, the project’s design firm, explained in a press release. The unique form will also ensure that a majority of units will feature garden terraces—a trademark of the firm rarely seen in urban homes.
"The vast majority of towers in NYC are extruded rectangles," said ODA founder and executive director Eran Chen. "As population density in New York increased, our habitats borrowed from the corporate archetypal towers and took on a similar two-dimensional structure.” The prevalence of this “big-box concept,” he said, has spurred an “inherent locational hierarchy,” which he and his team sought to challenge in formulating a building in which every unit is a corner apartment.
“I asked ODA to create a project that would capture the spirit and vitality of Williamsburg and the grandeur of the entire Manhattan skyline, seemingly within arm’s reach just across the East River. Eran and his team did just that, designing an exquisite addition to the Brooklyn waterfront,” Spitzer enthused.
"Historically, Brooklyn has often been considered secondary to the larger and more glamorous Manhattan. Now, because of changes to zoning regulations, escalating residential growth and a celebrated and distinct local culture, Brooklyn has emerged as a destination of its own and, in many ways, has even taken the lead," Chen asserted. "The East River-Brooklyn shoreline has always had so much potential, and with full support and the successful collaboration with Eliot Spitzer and his team, we have the opportunity to add something extraordinary to the skyline—something that we hope will be a tribute to the creative, forward-thinking spirit of Brooklyn, which I’m proud that ODA has been given the chance to express."
