Designer and developer Alloy Development has revealed new renderings for One Third Avenue, a 63-story skyscraper in the second phase of the Alloy Block complex in Downtown Brooklyn. The 725-foot-tall structure will rise to the northwest of the completed 44-story Alloy Block tower at 505 State Street and will secure the title of the tallest Passive House-engineered building in the world. The building will yield 583 market-rate and affordable housing units, retail space, and commercial office space. The Alloy Block is bound by Flatbush Avenue to the northeast, Third Avenue to the northwest, and State Street to the south.
The first two renderings from afar show One Third Avenue’s scale relative to the surrounding cluster of towers. The skyscraper features a monolithic rectangular massing and is clad in a grid of oversized operable windows measuring 6 feet wide by 7.5 feet tall, giving tenants sweeping views and optimal natural light exposure. Passive House standards include an airtight building envelope and filtered fresh air. The residential and office components will also share energy resources to minimize waste heat.
Rendering courtesy of Alloy Development.
Rendering courtesy of Alloy Development.
The black paneling between the floor-to-ceiling windows features a sculptural design that will create a distinctive visual effect when viewed at particular angles.
Rendering courtesy of Alloy Development.
One Third Avenue’s podium will align with the height of the surrounding structures on Third Avenue, and will require a partial demolition. The podium’s is shown enclosed in a series of angled charcoal fins and floor-to-ceiling glass, and is topped with a landscaped roof deck.
Rendering courtesy of Alloy Development.
Below is a rendering of a typical living room, showcasing the exposed concrete aesthetic of the interiors.
Rendering courtesy of Alloy Development.
One Third Avenue will rise from an interior courtyard sitting behind two historic buildings. The residential lobby will be located within the existing building on State Street, while the commercial entrance will sit on the busier corridor of Schermerhorn Street and the future Temple Square Plaza. Retail storefronts will stretch along Third Avenue between the historic structures and the new contemporary infill.
The tower’s podium will contain six floors of office space elevated 100 feet above grade, with 11,300 square feet of leasable area per floor. The residential component will occupy floors 11 through 60, and 152 of the 538 total units will be designated for affordable housing.
The second phase will include the adaptive reuse of two historic buildings from the 1800s on State Street and Schermerhorn Street and include ground-floor retail space for the surrounding community.
“One Third Avenue will raise the bar for sustainable urban development,” said Alloy CEO Jared Della Valle. “Developing a Passive House building at this scale will be incredibly challenging, but the payoff will be significant with high quality living that remains environmentally friendly and energy efficient. The second phase of the Alloy Block will demonstrate new possibilities to the industry and stand as an example of a solution that helps stall climate change.”
Once complete, The Alloy Block is expected to become the most sustainable block in Brooklyn with more than 1,000 residences, including approximately 200 permanently affordable apartments, 60,000 square feet of Class A office space, 50,000 square feet of retail space, and two state-of-the-art Passive House public schools.
A construction timeline for One Third Avenue has yet to be announced.
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Oh Yeah Just what the doctor ordered-2-Thumbs Up
Kinda dull, but it’s okay. So glad it’s passive construction and that historic buildings are being retained. This is how you do it.
Blah… Plus, while the brutalist minimalism may look nice… Maybe they will insulate under the floor above? If not, everyone will know everyone’s business.
This looks nice and cool that they are keeping the historical buildings in place, but what does Passive House mean?
There’s a tool called ChatGPT to help you with that dude. The same thing that can help you understand how to read the street signs in Long Island City, Queens
What lame advice. In the past, people who knew about things, shared what they knew. So much for conversation and dialogue.
Nat Mac you must be new here. On a normal occasion, the average person would get a thorough response to a question such as the one Stanley asked. But, he’s had a lengthy track record sounding like a pathological liar making untrue observations about certain projects, playing the victim like with his “apology”below, and slandering Yimby without giving an example as to why he would falsely accuse.
You’ll see what I mean when Yimby does a story about a project in Long Island City, Queens (he’ll ask again how to read the street signs even after multiple people give him answers in different articles), or about 450 11th Avenue.
Stanley, this was copied and pasted from Google’s AI Overview:
A Passive House is a building standard that uses natural elements like sunlight, ventilation, and shading to reduce energy use. Passive House buildings can use up to 90% less energy than conventional buildings.
Benefits
Energy efficiency: Passive House buildings use less energy for heating and cooling.
Comfort: Passive House buildings are more comfortable and have more even temperatures.
Air quality: Passive House buildings have better indoor air quality.
Noise reduction: Passive House buildings have better acoustic insulation.
Affordability: Passive House buildings have lower utility bills.
Principles
Insulation: Passive House buildings have high-quality insulation with no gaps.
Airtightness: Passive House buildings are virtually air-tight.
Windows: Passive House buildings have high-quality windows with low thermal conductivity.
Ventilation: Passive House buildings have ventilation systems with heat recovery.
Orientation: Passive House buildings are oriented to take advantage of sunlight in the winter and provide shade in the summer.
You should use ChatGPT or DeepSeek to get answers faster than waiting for someone to do it for you next time though.
Thanks so much and yes, will use the LLMs in the future – apologies to all!
It’s kind of plain to fit in with the other plain looking buildings. Perhaps the rendering does not do it justice. Enough said.
Too bad they couldn’t come up with something more imaginative than a box.
They did! The previous design was amazing! And now this …
I like it, the ‘concrete jungle’, especially interior wise in an interesting way..
More uninspired architecture for BK lol. Quality fit and finish doesn’t make up a fully fleshed out design architecturally. Even so i hope the affordable units are actually affordable.
Looks like a bunch of cologne bottles stacked up in corner, doesn’t look appealing, Brooklyn is about sky not covering it with more congestion and overpopulation
Overpopulation? Ridiculous. Maybe you should leave. Brooklyn is for anybody, but it’s not for everybody.
Really? Wonderful facade materials. Why would you apply all that expense……to a giant, boring box! Folks we already did this on 6th Ave in the 1960s.
Where is Robert A.M. Stern? Please save us from this typical boxy, uninspiring, & unimaginative waste of architecture, profaning the great NYC skyline
! At least the prior rendering had some character and imagination to make it stand out from it’s nearest peers.
Square
So square
Should not have cost too much. It is all uncovered concrete.
The dark facade doesn’t look like concrete. Maybe aluminum paneling
It looks cool, but this is a honker. It’s a bit too large and boxy at the top. Why not make it more elegant?
Compared to the previous iterations of the design, this is a disgrace. Value-engineered, bland garbage. Completely not what we thought we were getting. Could have been an icon in the Brooklyn skyline and instead it’s just a lame box. So disappointing.
I see this design and all I hear is Tyra Banks screaming, “I was rooting for you, we were all rooting for you! How dare you!
Best comment
So we don’t know the architect?
Shade blinds may not be necessary for this building, and the exposed concrete probably holds up to this century’s interesting history: Thanks.