Breaking Brooklyn’s Mold

New Downtown Brooklyn Tower Will Change Look of Skyline

By Diane Greer

A residential tower rising at 80 DeKalb Ave. in Downtown Brooklyn represents a major departure from the borough’s archetypical design for rental projects.

Work is underway at 80 DeKalb Avenue. Construction of the building's window wall started in February. Topping out is scheduled for the end of April. Lane closures on DeKalb Avenue and Rockwell Place are easing site congestion but the small lot still presents some logistical challenges.

“Traditional Brooklyn apartments are brick and glass or just glass,” says Costas Kondylis, president of Costas Kondylis and Partners, New York, the project’s architect.

Kondylis’ design for Brooklyn-based Forest City Ratner Co.’s $200 million, 34-story high-rise will instead feature a unique folded façade clad in aluminum and glass. A series of setbacks will give the building a distinctive skyline profile.

“This is one of the Ratner’s first major residential buildings,” Kondylis says. “Most of their development projects have been office buildings. We are trying to develop a trademark for the Ratners that can be repeated in other projects.”

Part of the trademark is the use of aluminum and glass, which will give the tower a “cut-diamond appearance,” Kondylis says. Sunlight reflecting off the aluminum will make the building appear to shimmer in the skyline.

The project will house 292 market-rate rental units and 73 low-income units. Studio, one- and two-bedroom apartments range from 480 to 1,050 sq ft.

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Amenities include valet/concierge services, a health club, lounge and screening room and onsite parking for 126 cars. A lobby and 5,000 sq ft. of retail fill the first floor.

The development, located on DeKalb Avenue between Hudson Avenue and Rockwell Place and on the edge of the BAM Cultural district, has quick access to eight subway lines and the Long Island Railroad. Long Island University’s Brooklyn campus is across the street and Fort Greene Park two blocks to the east.

Forest City Construction of Brooklyn began construction of the 335,000-sq-ft project in July. Completion will occur in three phases between this summer and January.

Financing for the project includes $109.5 million in tax-exempt bonds and $27.5 million in taxable bonds from the New York State Housing Finance Agency 80/20 program. The program offers tax-exempt financing to projects with at least 20% of units for low-income residents.

HFA financing has been difficult to obtain due to a statewide boom in 80/20 projects. “One of HFA’s key criteria was readiness of construction,” says Melissa Burch, vice president of residential and commercial development at Forest City Ratner. “We had done a lot of work putting together this project over the last few years and were ready to go, which made this project attractive to them.”

Additionally, Forest City Ratner agreed that the 73 low-income units will remain affordable not just for the life of the bonds, a standard provision of most HFA 80/20 agreements, but for 99 years, Burch says.

Construction

The project is actually a partial redevelopment of a three-building complex, known as 10 MetroTech, owned by Forest City Ratner since the early 1990s. The facility formerly housed the Barton’s Candy Co.

Designed by noted architect Costas Kondylis, the 34-story tower features a folded façade clad in aluminum and glass. A series of setbacks will give the building a distinctive skyline profile.

To construct 80 DeKalb, one of the structures needed to be demolished. But the building shared a common wall and utilities with an adjacent building housing IRS offices, says Robert Sanna, Forest City Ratner’s executive vice president and director of construction and design.

Tenants in the adjacent building were temporarily relocated within it, permitting the team to create a work area for separating the buildings. Once separated, the wood-framed structure was demolished.

The new tower sits upon a 6-ft-thick mat foundation. Extensive excavation was not required because the existing building had one below grade level.

The site’s narrow footprint made it difficult to construct double-loaded corridors, a configuration with apartments built off both sides of a hallway. To expand available floor space, the building was designed with a cantilever.

Apartments in the first 12 stories face DeKalb Avenue and are entered from a corridor that backs up to a demise wall, Sanna says. Above the 12th story, floors are cantilevered over the adjacent building, adding enough space to build double-loaded corridors.

The triangular overhang, ranging from 20 ft. down to zero over a length of 60 ft, turns the trapezoid-shaped lot into a rectangle, says Silvian Marcus, CEO of New York-based WSP Cantor Seinuk. Support for the overhang is provided by the apartment partitions on the floors above.

“The partitions are made of reinforced concrete and act as a sort of cantilever,” Marcus says. Normally a backup span counterweighs the cantilever. “We accomplished this by using a three-dimensional system formed by the cantilever [reinforced partitions] and the floors,” Marcus adds. The floors pass the forces from the cantilever to the main core.

Parking is split between the existing basement level and second floor. This configuration avoided excavating a second basement that would hover a foot or two above the water table, Sanna says. Two vehicle elevators will be used in place of ramps to conserve space in the parking facilities.

Construction of the building’s window wall, which looks more like a curtain wall in that the panels overlay the slab edge, started in February. Topping out is scheduled for the end of April.

Building Design

Kondylis says that during design he was conscious of the apartment layouts and aimed for a warmer residential feel. “I tried to avoid creating another cookie-cutter Brooklyn apartment building,” he adds. Studios employ foyers and nooks for the bed to give the feeling of one-bedroom units.

An early design objective was to create a sense of light and air, Burch says. Units include oversized bay windows providing abundant natural light and sweeping views of the downtown and midtown Manhattan skyline, New York Harbor and brownstone Brooklyn.

The building’s sawtoothed design provides angular views and increases exposures within the apartments, Kondylis says. “It increases the window area per floor but at a negligible cost,” he adds.

Setbacks at the 22nd 26th and 30th stories create penthouse apartments with terraces and give the building a distinctive skyline profile.

Apartment finishes, such as glass-tile backsplashes, Caesarstone countertops and high-end appliances, are equivalent to features found in condominium units, Burch says. Most units include washers and dryers.

Ground-floor retail space is designed as a series of two-story townhouses. One of the townhouses, which serves as the building’s entrance, is all glass. “It is a very friendly building on a pedestrian level,” Kondylis says.

The building is designed to achieve LEED certification. “We are looking to see where there might be opportunities to convert the project to a silver certification,” Burch says.

Sustainable features include low-flow fixtures, FSC-certified wood products and materials with recycled content. Over 75% of the construction waste is being diverted from landfills.

Energy Star appliances and daylighting will reduce energy consumption, and 30% of the building electrical usage will be offset by green power.

Improved indoor air quality will be provided through low- or no-volatile organic compound emitting paints, sealants, coatings and carpeting. Special care was taken to air seal apartments to prevent air transfers between units.

This building, like all Forest City Ratner projects, will undergo commissioning and is seeking LEED’s enhanced commissioning credit. “Commissioning requires extra rigor in terms of performance testing,” Sanna says. “But it ensures that you are operating the building in the way it was designed to operate.”

Team List:

Developer: Forest City Ratner Cos., Brooklyn
Construction Manager: Forest City Construction, Brooklyn
Architect: Costas Kondylis & Partners, New York
LEED Consultant: Viridian Energy & Environment, LLC., Norwalk, Conn.
MEP Engineer: Cosentini Associates, New York
Structural Engineer: WSP Cantor Seinuk, New York
Facade Consultant: Israel Berger & Associates, New York
Geotechnical Engineer: Mueser Rutledge Consulting, New York
Acoustic Consultant: Cerami Associates, New York