Buildings — not open space — will give the Brooklyn Bridge Park its identity, a member of the project’s design team said last week.
Condo towers within the footprint of the 1.3-mile commercial and recreational development are the most controversial element of the design — and, in fact, are now the subject of a lawsuit to prevent their construction.
That didn’t prevent a member of the design team from championing those buildings at a community meeting last week.
“These buildings will give the park its identity,” Paul Whalen, a representative of newly hired architect Robert A.M. Stern, said last Thursday.
“One building could be like a lantern” on the waterfront, said Whalen. Others could be glass-walled “icons in the sky” or feature curved, Frank Gehry-style architecture.
Stern’s firm has been hired to draw up design guidelines for the project’s five commercial developments — which will include 1,200 luxury apartments and retail and commercial space.
Maintenance fees from the commercial development will fund the upkeep of the plan’s recreational component.
The scheme has already provoked one lawsuit against its lead state agency — but at the meeting, some opponents focused on making the best of what may be the “necessary evil” of development, as Cobble Hill Association President Roy Sloane called it.
Nonetheless, Sloane added that the condos need to be designed “so people who live in the buildings won’t think the park is their front yard.”
