The area around Newtown Creek – known as East Williamsburg to some, Bushwick to others – has been progressively de-industrialized over the generations, with heavy industry giving way to less job-intensive uses like light industry, warehousing, parking, and, increasingly, retail. The area, however, has retained its “M” zoning designation, precluding residential uses, but allowing commercial and industrial ones.
This zoning, however, is starting to backfire, as sites nearer to the residential parts of Bushwick and East Williamsburg are redeveloped into consumer-centric retail, offering none of the middle-class jobs of true manufacturing buildings but also none of the housing of mixed-use buildings.
One such development can be found at 1052 Flushing Avenue, on the corner of Flushing and Knickerbocker. Though most of the rest of the block is residential, as is the entire area to the east, the parcel is zoned M1-1.
And so the owner only had one realistic option to redevelop the lot, currently home to a car wash: retail.
The 3,600-square foot building is being expanded to 4,500 square feet, according to a permit application submitted earlier today, and it will be occupied by two stores, serving the rapidly gentrifying neighborhood of Bushwick proper, to the east. The structure will remain one story tall.
Bushwick-based Nasary Development, led by A. Bari Nasary, is listed as the owner on the permit, and Lower East Side-based Dal H. Chun Engineer is listed as the architect.
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