Here are some photos from last year via Bobby Williams showing the Domino Sugar Refinery next to the Manhattan Bridge in Williamsburg ...
As you may know, developers plunked down (forked over?) $185 million to buy the site last summer.
Skipping ahead, the new renderings for the site were released over the weekend. Perhaps you saw them at Gothamist or Curbed.
If not, well — brace for impact.
[SHoP Architects via Gothamist]
Curbed has a lot more of the details. The whole thing should take about 10 years at a cost of $1.5 billion to make happen.
Previously on EV Grieve:
Bombing the Domino Sugar Refinery
At the Domino Sugar Refinery
Shit! South Williamsburg is charming: the elevated railways, the bridge, the grafitti, the grime. the PR and Hasidic families hanging out outside. But it's becoming more like regular Williamsburg every day. This is the nail in the coffin.
ReplyDeleteSure - I'd far rather live in a shitty glass condo tower than a cool, funky loft in a converted factory building.
ReplyDeleteSeriously, how can these people be so rich and yet so fucking clueless? Everywhere else they are building structures to look they are old factories. These guys want to build something that looks like it belongs in Miami.
A real to-laugh or to-cry moment?
ReplyDeleteI always figured that building would become really sweet boutique loft condos (albeit pricey), maintaining the beautiful industrial history and character. Instead, an entire neighborhood gets the dystopian shit bomb.
I think I'll start looking for places in Alabama, or somewhere. This place is done.
Are we sure this isn't just the "affordable" housing part?
ReplyDeleteI still remember, when the plant was up and running, how the air used to smell like sugar when they were refining. A sweet treat in the middle of a gritty place. Too bad it had to be replaced with this potential nightmare.
ReplyDeleteI read on Gothamist that the developer is eager to make the waterfront park open and accessible to the public, and even to turn it over for management to the Parks Dept, which would be great. But they also claim that commercial space will only go to "small independent businesses" and not "big-box stores like Duane Reade", which is total BS. They're just trying to appease the community before they drop this massive turd on us.
ReplyDeleteWhen large buildings like these seemlingly cast no shadows whatsoever on the surrounding land I get very suspect of the entire plan.
ReplyDeleteConsiderate of them to put giant holes in the buildings in order to placate the environmentalists with a green roof on the 3rd floor of that one building!
ReplyDeleteThat building is a huge chemical wasteland I can't believe anyone would live there
ReplyDeleteShenzen on the Hudson! Seriously, did the chinese buy the site or what???
ReplyDeleteDo they ever think of the impact of having this many thousands of new residents on infrastructure such as roads, trains and schools? Williamsburg is totally saturated- it takes 3-4 tries to get on a train as they are all full to capacity in the morning. Plus it is hideous and soulless. These developers are tone deaf- people would love to live in the converted sugar factory but they don't see it.
ReplyDeleteEveryone is scrambling to get their tacky huge developments in before their God leaves office (like the other one in Greenpoint)
This is what happens when architects use Lego bricks to design their projects. Welcome to Legoburg.
ReplyDeleteWell, I must apologize to you Mistah Grieve....."Brace for impact".....I'm in mid-scroll thinkin' "C'mon EV.....how bad could whatever these idiots have come up with actually be?"
ReplyDelete......I will NEVER freakin' underestimate you again.....NEVER!
It's a world gone mad.
I used to work there, I sh*t you not.
ReplyDelete@ glamma
ReplyDeleteEV Grieve Guest Column!