A major commercial project has officially topped-out at 25 Kent Avenue, Williamsburg, Brooklyn. The building will bring a phenomenal amount of office space to the area, along with room for retail and production facilities. Rubenstein Partners and Heritage Equity Partners are developing the full-block eight-story structure.
It was only last summer that the latest major addition to Williamsburg’s nascent office development boom had received a special permit from the City. Now, construction on 25 Kent Avenue is well underway, with the latest from 5B Films showing the first floor beginning to rise.
North Williamsburg is one step closer to getting its first new office building in half a century. Yesterday, the full City Council approved a special permit with a new kind of industrial and commercial zoning for the eight-story project at 25 Kent Avenue.
Just as the MTA considers a lengthy L train shutdown to repair flood damage from Hurricane Sandy, the Department of City Planning has kicked off the approval process for Williamsburg’s first new office building in decades. But the rezoning for the development at 25 Kent Avenue includes a policy that could shape industrial areas throughout the city. It would create a special district that allows developers to trade light manufacturing space for extra office space.
In the spring of 2015, Heritage Equity Partners was preparing to file for a special permit that would allow it to build a nine-story, 480,000 square-foot office building at 25 Kent Avenue, within northern Williamsburg’s manufacturing zone. Current zoning requires half the building to be community facility space, but the permit would eliminate such mandate so the entire structure can be used for office or light manufacturing space. According to Crain’s, the Department of City Planning certified the application, which means the city’s Uniform Land Use Review Procedure (ULURP) has officially begun. The building would take up an entire city block and include a public plaza. The site’s old warehouses have already been demolished. In related news, Philadelphia-based Rubenstein Partners is purchasing an undisclosed stake in the project.
