Here are the Proposed Designs for the Towers at Brooklyn Bridge Park’s Pier 6

By on August 6, 2014 2:13 pm in brooklyn bridge park

The proposed designs are in for the towers at Brooklyn Bridge Park’s Pier 6. We’ve posted the full presentation below. For the most part we will reserve comment and let our readers weigh in on each one.

However one image included in the pitch from Alloy Design + Bjarke Ingles Group had us blurt out a very loud WTF (and not the abbreviation).

CHICKENS – WTF?

RELATED: NYT Article Sheds Light on Fight Over BBP Pier 6

From the BBP website:

Some designs for the development play off the park’s location near Dumbo with industrial touches. Others look more like Midtown office towers. Some add flourishes of foliage to anchor the buildings to the park.

A number of developers are proposing to provide amenities, such as additional public restrooms, a swimming pool, space for a prekindergarten and a spot for bike repairs.

The proposals for two towers—of about 31 stories and 15 stories—are expected to be discussed Wednesday afternoon at a meeting of the Brooklyn Bridge Park Corp., which runs the park.

Park officials said they were hopeful the quality of the proposals would help refocus the community conversation from a testy debate over the de Blasio administration’s requirement that developers dedicate at least 30% to affordable housing.

If the below embed doesn’t work for you, click here.

CAC Pier 6 Design Presentation – 08.06.14

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  • TMS

    I like Team 2s design the best but I don’t really like any of them bc the park, neighborhood and schools are crowded enough.

  • petercow

    Of course all the renditions do their best to minimize the height of the towers. To put things in perspective, 1 Pierrepont Plaza (corner of Cadman Plaza West), is 19 stories plus ‘steeple’.

  • bethman14

    Its misleading to compare number of stories. Commercial buildings (like 1PPT) usually have more space between floors (b/c of need for telecommunications, etc) so usually have fewer stories than residential. 1 PPT is about 420 feet including the steeple thing…..according to the presentation these buildings are all less than 315′. They are all smaller than 1 PPT, and smaller than lots of the tall buildings that have been surrounding Brooklyn Heights for decades. People need to get a grip and wake up to the fact that they live in NYC…the most vertical city in the US. Hate tall buildings? Move to Long Island.

  • bethman14

    5, 8 and 10 are the most interesting I think!
    Lets hope BBP can overcome the elitist, entitled NIMBY nastiness and deliver a nice project and some desperatly needed affordable housing.

  • petercow

    Count me as “elitist, entitled, and NIMBY”. I also need glasses when I go to the movies.

  • DCS

    The biggest flaw of the masterplan was to allow a 30 story building
    into the site. If anything is built, it should be capped at 10-15
    stories. However, unless they change the guidelines and we have to
    live with a 30 story tower, what is the best way to integrate it
    into the park. Both Marvel Architects, (Team 8), and Wasa, (Team
    14), eliminate half of the loop road and gain parkland. That is a
    smart move. Wasa’s tower also has a vegetated facade and is
    attempting to bring the landscape vertically. Jean Nouvel recently
    created a tower in Singapore, One Central Park Tower, covered with
    vegetation. Unless the masterplan is overturned and we have to live
    with a tower, we need to focus on how to best create a work of
    architecture that integrates landscape and architecture.

  • Kenji Takabayashi

    Team 5, 8 and 10 are very interesting. Looks like all of them will be quite tall. Does anyone else feel that this is a pretty significant time period for architecture?Thinking of all the buildings rising in NYC and Brooklyn, some of them quite nice…

  • marshasrimler

    i attended the meeting. Only our elected representatives Squadron, Millman and Levin voted to go back to the general project plan and evaluate these proposals in light of our rapidly changing community. The other board members all appointed voted full speed ahead.. Why do we have government run not by those we elect but by well connected elitists. This is no longer a democracy. Peter Ashkanazy , Hank Guttman and Nina Collins all sit on the BBP and Brooklyn Public Library Boards. Why do these folks who are uneelcted and well connected have so much influence over our community?? Something has got to give.

  • NeighboorHood

    I too was at the meeting and thought the same thing. Also the other board members don’t even try and hide their contempt for the public and our elected representatives. Alicia Glen tried to cut off Senator Squadron for going a few seconds over time and immediately let the next, pro-hi rise, speaker go on and on until the audience cried fowl. It’s mind boggling that the board can simply ignore unanimous recommendations from our elected representatives and sneers at the tax paying public in attendance.

  • petercow

    Yeah – do you love the tall buildings casting shadows over Central Park?

    And FWIW, I’ve lived in NYC my entire, so…you can fill in the NY retort.. but coincidentally, it ends with “up”.

  • stuart

    some very nice proposals. I like the Fox & Fowle parti the best. Interesting that two of the designs are from local architects. The views from those buildings will be lovely.

  • BrooklynBugle

    We will have a report on the meeting — and more — this week.

  • Doug Biviano

    Our elected officials share the same consultant firms/lobbyists with the big developers, Berlin Rosen in particular. They go to the same fundraisers and fill their campaign kitties lavishly keeping them elected. Peter Sikora, Squadron, Levin, Lander, Shelly Silver and de Blasio all retain and work with Berlin Rosen as does Forest City Ratner, Two Trees, LICH Letter PAC Campaign for One NY, and others. de Blasio and Cuomo took tens of thousands from Fortis (LICH developer) and can only guess how much with PACS. Things are not what they seem and our elected officials simply do not respect their voters. We explain more in our press release:
    http://dougbiviano.com/index.php/press-releases/4-it-s-time-to-respect-the-voters

  • Sen. Bob Forehead

    400 units and 72 parking spaces…BRILLIANT!

  • miriamcb

    I was also at the meeting with my daughter. The board was so condescending.

    They definitely did try to cut anyone who was speaking out against the park but funny how they let anyone who went over time to keep going if they were in support of the park.

    One of the park board members asked if there had ever been a precedent set for reviewing a GPP this far into the process. To which their intern, stated no. My question around that particular aspect is this – just because there is no precedent does this mean it is the responsible way to play a park that has so clearly impacted the immediate community? It seems to me a very, short-sighted way to build something to not reevaluate and expect feedback partway through the process that can inform the end of the project.

    At one point, I remember being told to “reflect on my life and find a time we compromised”. She made a reference to having made deals and not ever being able to change the terms of those terms that were agreed upon 10 years ago. It seems a deal with the devil was made.

  • miriamcb

    I was so disappointed with the height of Pier1 just the other day while I was walking with friends from out of town. I used to be able to point out the ESB and Chrysler when we came up Squibb bridge and walked out onto the Promenade. Chrysler is blotted out.

  • marshasrimler

    We need to do something to stop the princes and princesses of the neighborhood from controlling it. No one elected them. Collins , Guttmen and Askhansky and Witty
    have too much power as unelected citizens. They are well-connected elites and need to be contained.

  • heights res

    There’s nothing NIMBY about insisting that PUBLIC parks exclude private development

  • heights res

    You are obviously not a New Yorker….

  • NeighboorHood

    My wife said the same thing about he “legal precedent”. That’s how precedents are made! And who would be the injured party if they set precedent and took a pause and reviewed the plan? Oh right the real estate developer? But they have not been hired yet so… Also for Board member Witty to take offense at being called disingenuous was…disingenuous! She misrepresented the park planning process history, spoke to the crowd like we were children as you mention, and when called on 1 aspect of her re-writing the history of the park planing and how the board members made sure their homes were not impacted, claimed she lived on Columbia Heights and her home looked right at the hotel! Hello, the hotel can not rise higher than Columbia Heights so she’s looking right OVER the hotel at the NYC skyline view she always had, no? The lies, and misinformation spoken at the meeting were too much to list.

  • Quinn Raymond

    I would REALLY like to see them waive the mandatory minimum parking requirement. We should be discouraging as much car traffic as possible around the park.

    As for the proposals, 4, 8 and 14 are the most visually compelling to me. 4’s use of texture on the facade to create different shapes out of shadows during different time of day is particularly captivating.

    I need to spend more time looking at the actual floorplans though and how the ground floor might benefit the community.

  • miriamcb

    You’re right. It was really a very, very frustrating meeting. I haven’t been to that frustrating of a meeting where I felt no agency in a long time.

    I’m not even sure what there is to be done about it! Is there anything to move these people off the board?!

    My view of the precedent piece was just CYA. And a cowardly way to go about it at that.

  • HicksOnHicks

    bethman14 – Why do assign motives to those opposed to the Pier 6 developments. I’m opposed because we were lied to. We were told that we needed those buildings to maintain the park. That’s why they can build inside the park. Why don’t we resuscitate the Bloomberg idea of building on NYCHA land? Oh that’s right, the “elitist and entitled” NYCHA tenants are opposed.

  • bethman14

    Do you mean the San Remo? The Dakota?
    Central Park like most other parks has been surrounded by tall buildings for the better part of a century. I honestly, truly don’t get what the big deal is.

  • petercow

    ‘Nuf said.

  • StoptheChop

    Yes– it’s fascinating how Pierhouse had some stories lopped off AFTER the RFP was approved, because they would impact the straight-on views from the Promenade. The way it blocks the bridge anchorage from everywhere else…. {shrug}.

    So, of COURSE the Plan can be changed (and keep in mind that the BBPDC was willing to add on the velodrome, until the “donor” dropped out– another major change that would have happened). Disingenuous indeed. And arrogant.

  • Iguest

    Affordable housing? How is that going to fund the park? Has anyone ever considered that???