The rowhouse at 48 Downing Street is part of a very intact block between Gates Avenue and Putnam Avenue in Brooklyn’s Clinton Hill Historic District. Its owner wants to make it bigger, both on the rear and the roof, but the Landmarks Preservation Commission, at its public hearing last Tuesday, did not approve it, citing concerns of size, intervention, and visibility.
Joseph Deutsch, doing business as an anonymous LLC, has filed applications for a four-story, seven-unit residential building at 475 Woodward Avenue, in Ridgewood, located 10 blocks northwest of the Forest Avenue stop on the M train. The entire building will measure 6,526 square feet in total, but residential units will spread across 4,996 square feet of space. That means average configurations of 714 square feet apiece, indicative of rentals. Oleg Ruditser’s Brooklyn-based M.E.P. Designs Inc. is the applicant of record. Permits to demolish the existing two-story house were filed in December.
JIH Builders Group has filed applications for a four-story, nine-unit residential building at 233 Buffalo Avenue, on the eastern end of Crown Heights, located six blocks from the Crown Heights – Utica Avenue stop on the 3, 4, and 5 trains. The project will measure 8,906 square feet in total and will have 6,075 square feet of residential space, which means units will average a rental-sized 675 square feet apiece. Rego Park-based Diego Aguilera Architects is the applicant of record. An existing two-story building must first be demolished.
Sequoia Development Group is currently converting the four-story, 55,000 square-foot former paper mill at 456 Johnson Avenue, in East Williamsburg, into a mixed-use commercial property. According to The Real Deal, the upper three floors will have a total of 35 office units, each measuring between 900 and 2,200 square feet apiece. Retail space is planned on the ground floor and the building is being dubbed Paper Mill. The developer is leasing the property from its owner, Maki Realty Corp. Red Hook-based ND Architecture & Design is designing the conversion.
YIMBY detailed in November of 2014 the initial Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) hearing on the residential conversion of the former New York Life Insurance Company building at 346 Broadway (a.k.a. 108 Leonard Street), in Tribeca. The 13-story, 427,000 square-foot building is an individual and interior landmark, and is listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places. A month after the hearing, the LPC approved the changes that would including making the structure’s clock tower part of a penthouse and for the clock to run electronically, the WSJ reported. Last week, according to Commercial Observer, the Peebles Organization and Elad Group landed a $334 million construction loan for the project, which would convert the former office building into 151 condominium units. Additionally, a community facility and retail space will measure 7,210 and 2,200 square feet, respectively. Beyer Blinder Belle is designing the conversion.
