Sugar refined Airy new plan for B'klyn Domino site

The New York Post, 2013-03-04

By RICH CALDER

The old Domino Sugar plant in Williamsburg is about to get a taste of DUMBO.

Two Trees Management Co. - credited with reviving the former manufacturing zone between the Brooklyn and Manhattan bridges with luxury apartments - has unveiled a $1.5 billion plan to bring a similar transformation to the long-shuttered 11-acre Domino site.

New renderings by SHoP Architects show how the waterfront complex - famous for its neon Domino Sugar sign - will be turned into offices and how other new buildings on the Kent Avenue site have a tall, skinny, open-air design.

Each uses "bridge" patterns that create large, rectangular gaps so the sun can pass through.

The new design, by Two Trees' father-and-son principals David and Jed Walentas, replaces an earlier design by another developer, CPC Resources.

The CPC plan was criticized for "walling off" the rest of the neighborhood from the waterfront - a problem the new architects hope to remedy.

"It's an open, connective architecture whose sole purpose is to bring light and air into the neighborhood even though large buildings are being built there," said Vishaan Chakrabarti, a principal at SHoP.

Two Trees wants to build more than 600,000 square feet of commercial office space - six times more than CPC had planned.

Like DUMBO, the proposed mini-community wouldn't have big-box stores, and all of its 79,000 square feet of retail space would be ground floor. Nearly all of the 2,284 apartments would be rentals.

The Walentas also said they would preserve the famous Domino sign.

Two Trees is also increasing the project's open space by 60 percent, to 5.3 acres, and plans to include a floating pool, kayak launch, esplanade and seasonal ice-skating rink.

The company hopes to have necessary zoning changes approved by year's end, before there's new leadership at City Hall and Borough Hall.

Two Trees wants to break ground in early 2014 and complete the project in 10 to 15 years.

rich.calder@nypost.com

Originally published by RICH CALDER.

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