BIG is back – and better — in Gowanus.
The developers of 175 Third St. tapped Bjarke Ingalls’ much-in-demand architectural firm to design their planned, 1,000-unit, rental apartment tower – and it’s nothing like BIG’s earlier concept for previous site-owner Aby Rosen’s RFR Realty.
The new 175 Third St. in the burgeoning residential neighborhood from Charney Companies and Tavros will stand 27 stories encompassing over 1 million square feet – the fifth building by the partners on four different sites on the Gowanus Canal’s eastern side.
The images on this page reveal Ingalls’ new vision for the first time, which the architect described as “stacked blocks of cascading concrete volumes, cascading down toward the canal waterfront.”
“We had our eyes on the site forever,” Charney Companies principal Sam Charney said. “But someone else always owned it” until “the price finally came down [to $164 million] and we knew this was the time.” The purchase closed in May.
When RFR bailed, it was expected that Charney and Tavros would choose a different architect. Instead, they liked Ingalls’ new concept the best of the proposals they solicited from a half-dozen “starchitects.”
“We did not like the previous iteration,” Charney told Realty Check. “It was inefficient and hard to build. It had a red-brick design that kind of drowned out the [red brick] Powerhouse Arts structure next door.”
But Ingalls’ new conception “blew us away,” Charney said. Its textured “architectural concrete” will look as if it’s chiseled out of rock” — an homage to the area’s industrial past. Chamfered, angled corners at various heights generate “cool outdoor spaces.”
A federal-supervised cleanup of the two-mile-long, noxious canal that began ten years ago prompted the city to rezone 82 blocks in the former low-rise manufacturing area for residential use. The rush to create nearly 9,000 new rental apartments spurred a construction boom.
A portion of the once-toxic canal – long a punch line of stand-up comedians – emerged as the district’s unlikely scenic centerpiece. The waterway now suggests a picturesque, slow-moving river between handsome apartment towers on both sides.
The waterfront promenade will eventually run the canal’s length, with each developer responsible for the segment in front of their buildings. The ones Charney and Tavros are installing on their Nevins and Third Street frontages will be landscaped by Field Operations of High Line Park fame.
Construction of 175 Third St. will likely start when the Nevins and Douglass Street buildings are finished roughly a year from now.
The new 175 Third Street will have 1,000 rental units, of which 25% are “affordable” as required by neighborhood Mandatory Inclusionary Zoning. It will follow Charney and Tavros’ 224-unit Union Channel, which opened in February and is already 60% rented; and Douglass Port at 251 Douglass St. and Nevins Landing at 310 and 340 Nevins St., both under construction.
Sam Charney estimated the development cost of 175 Third St., including the land purchase, at about $1 billion. With 100,000 square feet of retail space, it will be the crown jewel of what Charney and Tavros call a “Gowanus Wharf campus” even though the buildings aren’t next to each other. It will boast a 30,000 square-foot public park with 250 feet of canal boardwalk; sports facilities, a dog run, rooftop lounges, spa pools and a three-acre, landscaped courtyard, plus 35,000 square feet of lavish indoor amenities.