Renderings of a proposed development in Sheepshead Bay were revealed last week, shedding light on a vision that could potentially transform the once quaint fishing village into a glitzy shopping destination.
The project, called Sheepshead Bay Station Plaza, imagines a multi-tier retail development at a 2.34-acre site comprising 1600 Sheepshead Bay Road and 1501 Voorhies Avenue.
The project is being developed by Acadia Realty Trust and P/A Associates, the team behind the proposed Canarsie Plaza near the Brooklyn Terminal Market.
Renderings, first posted on the blog Sheepshead Bites, show a massive glass complex—complete with consumers flocking to gain entry.
P/A Associates’ Carolyn Malinsky said the renderings are just preliminary.
“We are completely still in pre-development phase. We’re not sure what we are going to build there,” she said.
“You are looking at someone’s thought process,” she said of the sketches. “I am committed to nothing.”
She said no tenants have been signed and there is no time frame for the development.
“We could think for five more days or five years—that’s the development business,” Malinsky stated.
The site was purchased last year by Acadia Realty Trust for $20.3 million, a sale said to be the largest real estate transaction in the neighborhood in 20 years.
According to architect GreenbergFarrow, the complex will house upward of 335,000 square feet of retail, “including a number of possible mixed-use additions as well as a multi-level parking deck.”
“To maximize store frontage and visibility, a proposed private street connecting Voorhies Avenue and Sheepshead Bay Road will be planned into the Station Plaza site,” the company notes.
The complex will bring “modern, multi-level retail to the affluent neighborhood of Sheepshead Bay,” P/A Associates notes on its website. Its figure for retail space is 240,000 square feet on four floors, with parking for approximately 750 cars. The company said the development will have a mix of local and national retailers.
As this paper has reported, it has been rumored that Best Buy, the consumer electronics retailer, could be interested in leasing space at the site. The company and the developers have yet to formally announce anything.
No plans have yet been filed with the Department of City Planning, an agency spokesperson said. The site was once home to Verizon. Demolition on the property has been ongoing. All of the commercial leases on the Sheepshead Bay Road side of the property expire by July 2010.
Theresa Scavo, the chair of Community Board 15, said that when she first saw the renderings, she thought just one thing: “Dramatic.”
“I’m not buying it,” she said. “There is a difference between renderings and plans. Those could just be the idea of what they want it to look like.”
