Some of the richest tenants
in Brooklyn would share a sub-basement with the borough’s meanest
thugs under a developer’s bold proposal for a new Brooklyn House
of Detention (left).
DUMBO developer Jed Walentas
wants to knock down the existing House of D and build two new towers on
the Atlantic Avenue site — one for tenants and the other for inmates.
“It would be more efficient
for a private developer to come in and just rebuild the whole site,”
Walentas told The Brooklyn Papers.
For the project to be profitable,
Walentas would need to build a second residential tower on the same foundation,
he said.
Walentas, best known for his
posh DUMBO real estate, compared his Big House plan to his company’s
Court House building, a 321-unit apartment complex a block away that shares
a foundation with the new Dodge YMCA.
And he doesn’t think
his ritzy tenants would mind their unsavory neighbors.
“Do you know, or care,
who you share a foundation with?” Walentas asked.
The city Department of Corrections
has said it will double the capacity of the jail by building a new annex
in the back.
The jail could reopen as early
as this fall.
Despite its lowly status,
the jail has become a hot commodity for developers. Michael Burke, director
of the Downtown Brooklyn Council, said Walentas is not the only builder
to inquire about the site.
Area residents want to see
the shuttered, 11-story jail stay closed, despite a Department of Corrections
plan to include neighbor-friendly retail on the Atlantic Avenue-facing
ground floor.
A Corrections spokesman declined
to comment on the Walentas proposal.
“There are a number of
options being explored,” he said.
