Third-of-its-kind Industrial Development Gets Green Light

Another Industrial Business Incentive Area for a seven-story office, retail, and light manufacturing development at 103 N 13th St. was approved by the City Planning Commission in February, making the greenlighted development the third-ever in NYC. Another IBIA will be needed for Acme Smoked Fishes’ redevelopment at 30 Gem St.

The other two unique IBIA developments, 25 Kent Ave. and 12 Franklin St., are also within the Greenpoint and Williamsburg Industrial Business Zone and gained approval for special permits to increase the legal floor to area ratio and to remove parking lot requirements.

 

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The new dual eight-story mixed-use office buildings known as 25 Kent Ave. are nearing completion. The development has approx. 70,000 square feet of retail space, 350,000 square feet of office space and 80,000 square feet will be for light manufacturing use. The developers, Rubenstein Partners and Heritage Equities, worked with the Dept. of City Planning to create a special land use framework to allow them to build eight stories of commercial space where the zoning would only allow them to build one or two stories, according to the Commercial Observer.

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According to CityLand, the potential 103 N 3rd St. development will be approximately 60,000 square-feet:

The applicant’s property is an approximately 12,500 square foot lot zoned for manufacturing uses and is currently vacant. Under existing zoning, the applicant could develop an industrial-use building of up to approximately 25,000 square feet, or 2.0 FAR , and would have to provide parking. With the IBIA designation and the grant of the two special permits the applicant will receive an additional almost 35,000 square feet of floor area, or 2.8 FAR, and can waive the required parking with City Planning approval.

The applicant will build a new seven-story, approximately 60,000 square foot mixed-use development that would contain retail space on the first floor, industrial space on the second floor, and offices on the remaining five floors. This is reflective of the rationale behind the IBIA, which is to preserve manufacturing space while bringing offices and jobs to the area. The building would be built to a streetwall height of 75 feet, and after a setback of 15 feet, to its maximum height of 110 feet. The building will have outdoor terraces on the second and sixth floors and provide 17 bicycle parking spaces at the cellar level. No car parking will be provided as the area is well-served by public transit, and only one loading berth instead of the required three.

Brooklyn Community Board 1 voted unanimously in December to approve the development with conditions that the developer does not use the industrial space for retail, the industrial portion to be rented at 20 percent less than the market rate, and for the developer to prove that there is adequate parking nearby for tenants.

The NYC City Council sent the application this month to the Subcommittee on Zoning and Franchises for review. Meanwhile, the first IBIA at 25 Kent is nearing completion and will help give a view to how the increasingly popular special zoning incentivizes industrial business growth in the neighborhood.