Excavation work has begun at 625 Fulton Street, site of a proposed 941-foot tall, 79-story mixed-use skyscraper in Downtown Brooklyn. Designed by Skidmore Owings & Merrill and developed by Rabsky Group, which purchased the site for $158 million, the 1.8-million-square-foot project is planned to yield a mix of offices, residential units, retail space, an elementary school, and a public plaza. The property is located between Fulton Street to the south, Hudson Avenue to the west, DeKalb Avenue to the north, and Rockwell Place to the east.
After sitting dormant for several years, recent photos show the 89,000-square-foot plot full of activity with multiple construction vehicles at work. The majority of the northern half is now below grade, while excavation on the opposite southern half has yet to begin.
625 Fulton Street. Photo by Michael Young
625 Fulton Street. Photo by Michael Young
625 Fulton Street. Photo by Michael Young
625 Fulton Street. Photo by Michael Young
625 Fulton Street. Photo by Michael Young
625 Fulton Street is slated to yield 739,000 square feet of office space, 60,547 square feet of retail space, 902 residential units with 25 percent affordable units, a 640-seat public elementary school spanning about 82,500 square feet, underground parking space for 350 vehicles spanning two levels below grade measuring around 116,000 gross square feet, and about a quarter of an acre of public outdoor space at street level with a 2,410-square-foot enclosed accessible area to the public. The main rendering shows a multi-stepped building massing with floor plates that gradually reduce in size as they approach the rhomboid roof parapet. Each setback is shown topped with a landscaped terrace, while the curtain wall is made of floor-to-ceiling glass and a secondary layer of earth-toned mullions.
Below are building massing diagrams that study the different configurations for the skyscraper. The main rendering is based off the first one.
Building massing diagram of 625 Fulton Street in Downtown Brooklyn at 941 feet tall.
Building massing diagram without setbacks for 625 Fulton Street in Downtown Brooklyn at 821 feet tall.
Building massing diagram of 625 Fulton Street in Downtown Brooklyn at 927 feet tall.
Building massing diagram of 625 Fulton Street in Downtown Brooklyn at 863 feet tall.
A completion date for 625 Fulton Street, and finalized renderings, have yet to be formally revised and revealed. Read more here about the rezoning for the address.
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If they build that largest of the zoning diagrams in a way that looks anything like the renderings it will be an unmitigated disaster for the neighborhood. Shame on you SOM for even suggesting anything this ugly on such an important site. If you guys hate design this much get out of the business.
Have to agree here. This massive colossus would be the beast that eats Brooklyn.
NIMBYs gonna NIMBY.
It’s time to build up, and go all way up to the top. The highest point of building has not yet seen: Thanks to Michael Young.
Downtown Brooklyn will be supertall/skyscraper heaven. Any NIMBYs that are angered by this, your ship has sailed. When Downtown Brooklyn was rezoned there were public meetings to protest the change. No one objected to the building heights so it’s too late to cry over spilled milk. Supertalls in Downtown Brooklyn are now a part of it’s future. More of these buildings are to come. Most of the land available to be developed into Supertalls have been Grandfathered in so there is virtually nothing that can be done to reverse the trend and the real estate is cheaper than in Manhattan so get ready get set.The time is now, the future is here so might as well accept the reality. There is another option for the NIMBYs….MOVE !!!!!
You obviously don’t live here. the bulk is not the issue, as you pointed out that is baked into the zoning sell out, it’s the god awful design that needs to be addressed by public hearing. Hire an architect that give a sh-t about design.
This thing is a chonker!! For those saying this is a “disaster”, have you seen the neighborhood? It’s full of either new construction or dilapidated old buildings. This will be a benefit for the neighborhood, brining in more residents, more office workers, more retail, and a school.
The complaints so far are (justifiably) over the design, not the height. You’ll notice that the comments on this site for 9 Dekalb a couple blocks away are absolutely glowing because it was thoughtfully designed.
Wow Wow
Manhattan was not enough
You need BROOKLYN too
One school for who
The children of the neighborhood
Only in a city for the wealthy
What language is that?
SOM is a great firm — even a venerable firm. Why is it that their New York work is often the least interesting and least innovative in their large international portfolio? These diagrams show how good design can be hobbled by land and development considerations that put profitability above all other considerations. Forget about site, neighborhood history, street life, the peculiarities that make a particular neighborhood interesting, etc…
SOM was a once venerable firm who has long slipped into sub mediocrity. Walter Netsch and Gordon Bunshaft have long left the building. This proposal is further proof.
It is one hulk of a building, but I think it has some good potential. Afterall, who says no to a near-supertall in Brooklyn?
Bigger & Taller!! The Future Is Here!!
Kinda fugly. Woyld look better as two towers on a shared base than whatever is going on here.
its ok, but it’s lame and its not tall enough. it’s great for that major eyesore site to finally be filled in i guess.
A few weeks ago YIMBY told us that there were plans for a five story building filed for this site, without any mention of the plans for the tower (which were well known, nothing here is really news). Perhaps a clarification of that earlier post is in order? Some sort of acknowledgement that this site doesn’t just consist of robo-posts?
FYI – There are no “old dilapidated buildings” in downtown Brooklyn. Most of the stock are brownstones.
There are brownstones in adjacent neighborhoods, but very few if any right in downtown Brooklyn. And yeah, there’s some pretty dilapidated crap left on Fulton and Willoughby and in other spots, not to mention the remaining surface parking lots. There’s still a lot of room for improvement.
It’s OK. Not great. And nothing like 9 DeKalb which will be gorgeous.
If you are going to pay a fortune to live in this awful neighborhood, you might as well live in Manhattan.
I take 11 Hoyt and 9 Dekalb See for yourself.
Conceiving Brooklyn as Manhattan is a giant mistake. This pathological impulse that transforms every dimension into a single forest of skyscrapers is unsightly and counterproductive
The design takes some getting used to. It looks clumsy and fugly in the diagrams and rendering, but you know these things never give an accurate feel of what a building will be like live and in context. I am willing to see something risky and a bit off kilter rather than schlocky glass and steel in the Long Island City style.
Sadly, brilliantly designed buildings and architectural marvels all of us in NYC can be proud of, are desperately rare here when compared to many other global cities. ?
Case in point: Hudson Yards, which has the largest collection of either outright “fugly” and/or boring and banal supertalls in the world.
When considering marvels such as: Woolworth Building, The Chrysler Building, Empire State Building, the Seagrams Building or 30 Rock (just to name a few examples), it’s all so terribly disappointing that few buildings now inspire the type of Civic Pride or add beauty to our formerly iconic, and envy of the world, skyline.
It’s all such a shame that our developers are not held to an higher standard for the tallest (and for them incredibly lucrative) buildings recently constructed (here’s looking at you “Fugliest” of them all, 30 Hudson Yard, with the incredibly disappointing and underwhelming “Spiral” not far behind in terms of “fugliness”), under construction (the aforementioned “Spiral”), or planned for the future (the spectacularly “fugly” Pennsylvania Station “Penn 15” anyone? Or even worse, that monstrosity planned to replace the Grand Hyatt at Grand Central Terminal…I mean, seriously, can it get any fuglier than that overly massed, hulking garbage that will poison NYC’s increasingly once majestic skyline??) ?.
In fact, only TD Tower and American Copper Building come to mind as the type of recent buildings that are beautiful and have any kind of “Wow” factor.
I agree. Hudson yards is the most depressing place in NYC. Just shards of ugly blue glass that pinch the eyes, heart and soul.While the flat iron district is the most inspiring. Rich in texture color and symmetric forms. How did the art and craft of architecture degrade to such a point? 9 DeKalb though is a ray of hope that beautiful buildings can still be built.