By Devin Gannon, Thu, July 1, 2021 Photos by Michael Young
Brooklyn’s first supertall hit a major milestone this week. In Downtown Brooklyn, the skyscraper under construction at 9 DeKalb Avenue reached 721 feet, developer JDS Development Group announced on Wednesday. Designed by SHoP Architects, 9 DeKalb is now more than halfway to its pinnacle of 1,066 feet, officially snatching the title of the borough’s tallest tower from Extell Development’s 720-foot-tall Brooklyn Point. A building is labeled as a supertall if it reaches over 300 meters, or 984 feet.
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By Devin Gannon, Wed, April 24, 2019 Rendering courtesy of SHoP Architects/JDS Development
The on-again, off-again construction of a Brooklyn skyscraper got a major push forward Tuesday. The Wall Street Journal reported that 9 DeKalb Avenue’s developer Michael Stern of JDS Development has acquired a more than $664 million loan package to fund the development of the skyscraper. While the plan was first approved by the Landmarks Preservation Commission three years ago, lack of financing and a change of developers stalled the project. Expected to reach 1,066 feet high upon completion, the SHoP Architects-designed tower will become the borough’s tallest.
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By Alexandra Alexa, Mon, April 22, 2019 Rendering via SHoP Architects
A fresh rendering of 9 Dekalb Avenue first published in the New York Times last week revealed a new aspect of the project: the Dime Savings Bank‘s roof will be transformed into an outdoor lounge for residents, including a pool that will partly wrap around the ornate Guastavino dome. Inside, the Beaux-Arts interior will become a flagship store, with further details to be announced. The rising 1,066-foot-tower is being developed by JDS Development, with SHoP Architects leading the design, and is set to become the tallest tower in Brooklyn upon completion.
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By Lucie Levine, Mon, January 7, 2019 Since it opened in 1859, the Dime Savings Bank of Brooklyn has been integral to the history of the borough it calls home. True to its name, you could open a savings account with just a dime. The first person to make a deposit was a man named John Halsey who invested $50. Scores of Brooklynites followed suit, and by the end of the bank’s first business day, 90 people opened accounts; by the end of the first month, more than 1,000 people were depositing at Dime.
But the bank cemented its prominent status in 1908 when the first subway tunnel between Manhattan and Brooklyn opened and Dime moved into its grand neo-classical building on Dekalb Avenue and Fleet Street. After the bank closed in 2002, the landmark still stood in all its former glory, operating as a special event space. Three years ago, JDS Development filed plans to build Brooklyn’s tallest tower adjacent to Dime, incorporating its Beaux-Arts interior as retail space for the project. And with work now underway, 6sqft recently got a behind-the-scenes tour of Dime Savings Bank with Open House New York.
Explore the history and future of Dime Savings Bank
By Devin Gannon, Tue, November 6, 2018 Rendering via SHoP Architects
Since the plan to bring the first supertall tower to Brooklyn was approved by the Landmarks Preservation Commission in the spring of 2016, few updates have been announced about the project. While construction kicked off last year, work on 9 DeKalb Avenue was stalled for months. But YIMBY reported on Tuesday that construction of the Downtown Brooklyn tower appears to have made some progress, with its foundation now visible and workers on site. The planned 1,066-foot-tower is being developed by JDS Development, with SHoP Architects handling its design.
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By Emily Nonko, Mon, December 11, 2017 This year was all about new development redefining the New York City skyline. Construction moved along at a rapid pace, whether it be the topping out of Richard Meier’s tower at 685 First Avenue or foundational work kicking off at Brooklyn’s first supertall 9 Dekalb. In the next several years we’ll see these buildings open and show off apartments at sky-high prices, but for now, we get to enjoy the construction process on some of the most notable new architecture to come to New York.
We’ve narrowed down a list of 12 news-making residential structures for the year. Which do you think deserves 6sqft’s title of 2017 Building of the Year? To have your say, polls for our third annual competition will be open up until midnight on Monday, December 11th and we will announce the winner on Tuesday, December 12th.
VOTE HERE! And learn more about the choices.
By Dana Schulz, Wed, November 30, 2016 When Charles Kushner founded real estate development firm Kushner Companies in 1985, he may have had visions of his son Jared taking over the company (which he did in 2007), but he never could have predicted the role his kin would have in one of the country’s most contentious presidential elections. Because of his political involvement, many have speculated what will come of the company, but Jared shows no signs of slowing down. In fact, the Post reports today that the firm plans to lend $1 billion over the next five years–or $200 million annually–to other developers’ projects through Kushner Companies’ new lending arm, Kushner Credit Opportunity Fund, which was launched earlier this year.
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By Diane Pham, Fri, May 20, 2016 Gray silhouettes from left to right: Shanghai World Financial Center, CTF Finance Centre, One WTC, Lotte World Tower, Mecca Royal Clock Tower, Shanghai Tower, Burj Khalifa. Click link here to enlarge >>
As the Skyscraper Museum so aptly writes, “Tall and BIG are not the same thing.”
Echoing 6sqft’s recent post on global supertalls, the infographic above illustrates how when the height of New York’s tallest towers are stacked up against the sky-high constructions abroad (and 1 WTC), our city’s skyscrapers truly are “runts on the world’s stage.” The image also reveals that not only do these towers lack significantly in height, but also in girth. This means what really makes the design of all of New York’s new skyscrapers so unique is not how tall they are, but rather, how slender they are.
more on all that here
By Carter B. Horsley, Wed, April 20, 2016 Carter Uncut brings New York City’s latest development news under the critical eye of resident architecture critic Carter B. Horsley. Here, Carter brings us his fifth installment of “Skyline Wars,” a series that examines the explosive and unprecedented supertall phenomenon that is transforming the city’s silhouette. In this post Carter looks at Brooklyn’s once demure skyline, soon to be Manhattan’s rival.
Downtown Brooklyn has had a modest but pleasant skyline highlighted by the 350-foot-high Court & Remsen Building and the 343-foot-high great ornate terraces of 75 Livingston Street, both erected in 1926, and the 462-foot-high flat top of the 1927 Montague Court Building. The borough’s tallest building, however, was the great 514-foot-high dome of the 1929 Williamsburg Savings Bank Tower, now known as One Hanson Place, a bit removed to the east from Downtown Brooklyn. It remained as the borough’s tallest for a very long time, from 1929 until 2009. A flurry of new towers in recent years has significantly enlarged Brooklyn’s skyline. Since 2008, nine new towers higher than 359 feet have sprouted there, in large part as a result of a rezoning by the city in 2007. A few other towers have also given its riverfront an impressive frontage.
Whereas in the past the vast majority of towers were clustered about Borough Hall downtown, now there are several clusters with some around the Brooklyn Academy of Music and the former Williamsburg Savings Bank Tower and some around the Williamsburg riverfront.
more on Brooklyn’s skyline here
By Ondel Hylton and Dana Schulz, Tue, April 19, 2016 Brooklyn is finally getting a new skyscraper development worthy of its 2.6 million populace. Today, the Landmarks Preservation Commission approved SHoP Architects‘ vision for 9 DeKalb Avenue, a rehabilitation of the landmarked Dime Saving Bank that will marry it with a dramatic, supertall skyscraper behind, the first 1,000+ foot building to arrive in the borough.
The Beaux-Arts banking hall, which is both an interior and exterior landmark, hosted a J.P. Morgan Chase branch up until last year. Now, its new owners, Michael Stern’s JDS Development and the Chetrit Group, plan to transform the hall into a public and retail space that will complement their new tower. To bring back more of the building’s grandeur, its exterior and interior spaces will be restored, and to accommodate the tower behind, the team is calling for the demolition of two nondescript one- and five-story rear annexes, which will then allow for a grand entrance to the skyscraper and a public through-space.
The LPC was enamored with the project, calling it “flawless” and “enlightened urbanism at its best,” as well as touting that it “improved the vision of this historic landmark.” One commissioner even went so far as to say “It’s similar to the Parthenon sitting on the Acropolis.” The LPC had only a few minor modifications, the most notable being that the teller cages be retained until the team can show a plan detailing how the retail tenant (there will only be one) will use the space.
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