Brooklyn Music School and Gotham Organization present revised design for gradating tower at 130 St. Felix Street

By Michelle Mazzarella | From Future New York Tuesday, August 11, 2020

Rendering of revised design via FXCollaborative for Landmarks Preservation Commission

UPDATE 8/11/2020: The Landmarks Preservation Commission voted to approve the new tower at 130 St. Felix Street. The modified design presented by FXCollaborative reduced the height to 23 stories and 265 feet high, which makes it visibly lower than the main shoulder of the clock tower at One Hanson Place. Commissioner Anne Holford-Smith commented, "It's much more contextual and fits much better in with all the existing buildings."

On Tuesday, August 4, the Landmarks Preservation Commission (“Landmarks”) will hear a proposal for a new, state-of-the-art facility for the Brooklyn Music School (BMS) with apartments on top at 130 St. Felix Street in the Brooklyn Academy of Music Historic District. Members of the public who wish to view or take part in the virtual hearing are encouraged to be on Zoom by 9:30 a.m.

This is BMS and developer Gotham Organization’s second trip to Landmarks for the new building. At a virtual hearing in June 2020, a 'no action' decision was taken after nearly all commissioners voiced concerns about the scale and appropriateness of the new building, to be designed by FXCollaborative. Locals and commissioners alike voiced concerna that the planned 24-story, 285-foot building threatened to cast nearby townhouses in shadow and block views of existing historic buildings, especially that of the neighboring One Hanson Place (formerly the Williamsburg Savings Bank Tower)

Previous unapproved design

Revised proposal

All images credit of Gotham Organization and FXFowle Architects

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The project was inspired by the fact that BMS, a 111-year-old institution separate from the Brooklyn Academy of Music, has long outgrown its present facilities, which are spread over four converted townhouses. The new project will double its instructional space, allow for state-of-the-art equipment and room design, and help the school serve as an anchor for the cultural district.

Above the school, there will be a residential amenity floor and 120 residential units. Thirty percent, or approximately 35, will be allocated for moderate-income affordable homeownership opportunities, while the remainder will be market-rate condos - necessary for the financial viability of the project. When the developers announced their plans in October 2019, they hoped to begin construction in 2021 and open in 2023.

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The new building is intended to rise on a long-vacant lot just behind One Hanson Place and next door to the Hanson Place Central United Church. A gradiating facade, vertically fading from light to dark, is proposed to envelop the 167,000-square-foot structure. The crescendo of color won't be the first NYC building to utilize the technique, most famously 55 Central Park West ('the Ghostbusters building'), employs a brick and terracotta skin that fades from dark to light, giving it the illusion that the sun is always shining upon its upper floors.

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