The tilted yellow “Domino Sugar” sign on the old Williamsburg waterfront refinery could still be salvaged even though the building to which it’s attached will likely be knocked down during the site’s impending 11-acre redevelopment.
“We are looking at several different ways to save the sign,” said Edmond Richards, a spokesman for developer CPC Resources, told The Stoop.
Richards added that developers recently presented possibilities to Community Board 1, including one that showed the sign standing independently on the esplanade, like the Pepsi-Cola sign in nearby Long Island City.
Later this summer, the Landmarks Preservation Commission is expected to protect three buildings on the factory site that comprise the main processing area, but not the more-modern building hosting the sign. Preservationists are still hoping the 40-foot neon sign can be saved.
“It has defined a part of the Brooklyn waterfront for 50 years,” said Roger Lang, director of public policy for the New York Landmarks Conservancy.
“Just because it’s not a building doesn’t mean that it can’t be relocated and celebrated.”
The development calls for nine towers — four of which would stand taller than 300 feet — that would contain commercial space plus 2,200 mixed-income housing units, with around 600 reserved for low- and middle-income tenants. To make way for the new shops, apartments and esplanade, some Domino buildings dating as far back as 1883 will be demolished. Preservationists want the Commission to landmark the Adant House on South Fifth and Kent streets, as well as the decorative brick Power House. But so far the commission has no plans to vote on anything other than the main Processing House.
“It would make more sense as a complex and give a better sense of history,” said Martina Salisbury, a member of the Waterfront Preservation Alliance of Greenpoint and Williamsburg.
