Williamsburg has developed a reputation for unattractive modern architecture, but some architects are pursuing more traditional, factory-inspired designs. Today YIMBY can reveal a simple brick look for 535 Lorimer Street, a five-story apartment building planned between Ainslie and Devoe Streets, near the L and G trains at Metropolitan Avenue.
Three years ago, the city downzoned Richmond Hill, a working and middle-class area filled with one- and two-family homes just south of the Jamaica rail yards in eastern Queens. But they upzoned a commercial corridor on 101st Avenue, and one developer has decided to stake a claim there by filing plans for five small apartment buildings.
Bed-Stuy-based CGS Builders has been filing applications since March for a six-story, 29-unit residential building at 620 Parkside Avenue, in Prospect Lefferts Gardens, right around the corner from the 2 and 5 trains’ stop at Winthrop Street. The building will measure 26,076 square feet in total, and units will average 900 square feet apiece, in varying configurations of three to six per floor. Midtown-based Michael Avramides is the architect of record, and the lot is currently vacant.
HAP Investment Developers is proposing a 16-story, 241-unit mixed-use building at 4452 Broadway, in Fort George, four blocks from the 1 train’s stop at 191st Street. The developer initially filed plans for an eight-story, 98-unit mixed-use condo project, which would have been an as-of-right development. According to DNAinfo, the latest proposal must be approved by the city, and a public hearing at Community Board 12 is scheduled on September 2nd. The existing single-story commercial building was filed for demolition in 2014.
Earlier this spring, glass installation began at the two-story, 50,000 square-foot Whole Foods building at 242 Bedford Avenue, in northwestern Williamsburg, and now the building’s exterior appears to be nearing completion, Brownstoner reports. At the end of Berry Street, the building takes on a more industrial look, clad in brick rather than Bedford Avenue’s glassy envelope. Aurora Capital Associates and Midtown Equities are developing, and opening is expected in the spring of 2016.
