The current issue
Neighborhood Map
Bay Ridge
  • Bensonhurst, Dyker Heights
Brooklyn Heights
  • Downtown, DUMBO
Carroll Gardens
  • Cobble Hill, Red Hook, Boerum Hill
Fort Greene
  • Clinton Hill, Crown Heights
North Brooklyn
  • Williamsburg, Greenpoint, Bushwick
Park Slope
  • Prospect Heights, Windsor Terrace, Greenwood Heights
GO Brooklyn
Dining Guide
Where to GO
Events calendar
Classifieds
The Brooklyn Wire
Not Just Nets
Police Blotter
Perspective
Parenting
Politics
Transit
Podcasts
Brooklyn Cyclones
Merchant news
About The Paper
RSS Feeds
CNG Boro Politics

Joe Sitt sours on Revere Sugar mini-mall

By Mike McLaughlin
The Brooklyn Paper
Enlarge this image
The Brooklyn Paper / Tom Callan
Joe Sitt has started tearing down the last building that was part of the Revere Sugar plant in Red Hook.

Tools

Print this story
digg
del.icio.us

Real-estate mogul Joe Sitt began demolishing the remnants of the 19th-century Revere Sugar refinery in Red Hook last week — an indication that the developer has soured on his plans for a mega-mall complete with a BJs Wholesale Club.

The old warehouse, along Beard Street near the Ikea superstore, was all that Sitt left standing after he tore down most of the sugar factory in 2006 to the howls of preservationists, who said that the Revere plant, with its iconic dome, was eligible for the National Register of Historic Places.

Since then, the site has been quiet, but Sitt has been talking about repurposing the brick storehouse as a mall with BJ’s as the anchor tenant, according to documents obtained by The Brooklyn Paper.

Given that the Swedish furniture company’s big box store is next to Sitt’s property, many believed that Red Hook’s waterfront might become the shopping outlet center of the city.

The sudden burst of activity in Red Hook is a change for Sitt who has been preoccupied with larger pieces of real estate puzzle.

For much of the last two years, his ambitions in Brooklyn have been focused on his vast holdings in Coney Island which, at times, he has said he wants to transform into a tourist magnet of rides, hotels and shopping.

Sitt’s company, Thor Equities, responded with a statement:

“Thor’s original intention was to adaptively reuse the Revere Sugar factory warehouse as part of a new development, but after further analysis, the engineers found structural problems with the building making it unstable and potentially dangerous, and we were forced to proceed with taking the structure down.”

Updated 05:09 pm, August, 13 2009: Story was updated to include a comment from Thor Equities.

©2009 Community Newspaper Group

←Politics: Sen. Adams: I would’ve collared Gates immediately!
→Greenpoint: Gates of wrath! Greenpoint fights illegal fences along waterfront

Reader Feedback

Enter your comment below

By submitting this comment, you agree to the following terms:

You agree that you, and not BrooklynPaper.com or its affiliates, are fully responsible for the content that you post. You agree not to post any abusive, obscene, vulgar, slanderous, hateful, threatening or sexually-oriented material or any material that may violate applicable law; doing so may lead to the removal of your post and to your being permanently banned from posting to the site. You grant to BrooklynPaper.com the royalty-free, irrevocable, perpetual and fully sublicensable license to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, create derivative works from, distribute, perform and display such content in whole or in part world-wide and to incorporate it in other works in any form, media or technology now known or later developed.

First name
Last name
Your neighborhood
Email address
Daytime phone

Your letter must be signed and include all of the information requested above. (Only your name and neighborhood are published with the letter.) Letters should be as brief as possible; while they may discuss any topic of interest to our readers, priority will be given to letters that relate to stories covered by The Brooklyn Paper.

Letters will be edited at the sole discretion of the editor, may be published in whole or part in any media, and upon publication become the property of The Brooklyn Paper. The earlier in the week you send your letter, the better.