The iconic Brooklyn Watchtower buildings could soon see new life after years of vacancy.<\/p>\n
The Watchtower buildings served as the longtime headquarters of the Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses up until a decade ago, known for their large, bright red \u201cWatchtower\u201d sign that now reads \u201cWelcome.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
What You Need To Know<\/p>\n
The city is considering\u00a0rezoning the site of the Brookyn Watchtower buildings\u00a0and adding 661 new housing units, 166 of which would be permanently affordable
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The Watchtower buildings served as the longtime headquarters of the Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses up until a decade ago
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Some Brooklyn Heights residents say they\u2019re worried the development will be too tall.\u00a0Local elected officials say more housing is essential<\/p>\n
But now, the city is considering rezoning the Brooklyn Heights property and adding 661 new housing units, 166 of which would be permanently affordable.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Some Brooklyn Heights residents say they\u2019re worried the development will be too tall.<\/p>\n
“They will be fundamentally different than anything we see right now in this neighborhood,\u201d Brooklyn Heights resident Adam Drisen said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“We have two very, very large, empty buildings that have been empty for a long, long time. They are no longer being used for commercial space, for manufacturing,\u201d Drisen added. \u201cTime has sort of passed that by. So, I am completely in support of those buildings being turned into housing. The question is, why should one increase the size of the building by, you know, 70%?”\u00a0<\/p>\n
That size increase is part of the proposal from developer CIM Group, which purchased the buildings in 2016, with plans to add five stories to one of the existing 12-story buildings and one floor to the other building.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“In the case of Brooklyn Heights and Dumbo, we’re talking about historical and very sensitive urban fabric, which can be fundamentally changed with one or two buildings that are really, really out of place,\u201d Drisen said.<\/p>\n
Local elected officials say more housing is essential.<\/p>\n
“Whenever you’re adding to a building, or whenever a new building goes up, it impacts neighbors,\u201d Brooklyn City Councilmember Lincoln Restler said. \u201cBut we are facing a housing crisis, we do need more housing, and every neighborhood across our district and across the city needs to do its part. So, I think we’ll be able to figure out a good solution here.”<\/p>\n
A statement from the CIM Group says in part, \u201c…We have been actively engaging local stakeholders and look forward to continuing that dialogue to deliver meaningful housing and economic benefits for the community.\u201d<\/p>\n
The official Uniform Land Use Review Procedure, or\u00a0 ULURP process, is expected to begin later this year and conclude sometime next year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The iconic Brooklyn Watchtower buildings could soon see new life after years of vacancy. The Watchtower buildings served…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":162355,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[2908,25,98,100,99,2907,9,24,12,63,332,27,200],"class_list":["post-162354","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brooklyn","tag-app-housing","tag-app-top-stories","tag-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn-headlines","tag-brooklyn-news","tag-housing","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-news","tag-nyc","tag-rebecca-greenberg","tag-top-stories","tag-vod"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162354","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=162354"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162354\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/162355"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=162354"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=162354"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=162354"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}