LPC Sends Domino Designers Back to Drawing Board

[Rendering courtesy of Rafael Viñoly Architects]

The Landmarks Preservation Commission considered the proposed changes to the landmarked Domino Plant in Williamsburg yesterday, and told the architects to come back with a different design. The WGPA blog brought news of the hearing yesterday afternoon. New Domino architect Rafael Viñoly even appeared at the hearing, but it was Beyer Blinder Belle, which produced the design that includes a glass box at the top, whose work was the focus yesterday. The Beyer architects compared their work to a variety of structures including the Tate Modern, but the feedback was not entirely positive. Some LPC members felt addition was either “too tall,” “not the right design” or too “tame.” Other said it needs to be “more visionary” and emphasize the “industrial rigor” of the landmark, whatever the latter might mean. Domino Plant V. 2.0 to come.

Related Stories:
Landmarks Commission Calls for Revisions [Sun]
Overhaul of Domino Plant Back to Square One [NYDN]

No Action on Domino’s Big Glass Box

[Image courtesy of Rafael Vinoly Architects]

The Landmarks Preservation Commission heard testimony about the five-story glass box developers propose to put atop the historic Domino Factory in Williamsburg yesterday, but took no action on the plan. It will hold another session in a few weeks. The Williamsburg-Greenpoint Preservation Alliance’s blog said that the LPC commissioners didn’t seem inclined to support such a big addition to the top of the landmarked structure:

The comments that we did hear from the Commissioners made it clear that none of the Commissioners are ready to stand up and support a five-story rooftop addition on the refinery. Some Commissioners seemed to be comfortable with an addition of two or possibly three stories, assuming that such an addition was more architecturally integrated with the historic refinery and the rest of the new development.

Preservationists delivered the most negative reviews of the alteration. The Municipal Art Society’s Lisa Kersavage called the plan a “missed opportunity to create something that celebrates the history and architecture of these landmarks.” The developers said that the addition is necessary for the project to succeed, while the architect likened it to the Tate Modern in London. Ms. Kersavage and other seemed to take issue with the Tate analogy. “As designed the proposed glass box addition, plunked on top of the landmark, is simply too large and lacks the compositional organization and the arrangement of details that would relate it to the landmark,” Ms. Kersavage said. “The architects referenced the Tate Modern’s addition in their presentation to us, but that low-slung and horizontally oriented building has a completely different spatial volume and composition than the Refinery – and that addition is architecturally a much better fit.”

Meanwhile, Mary Habstritt of the Williamsburg-Greenpoint Preservation Alliance said:

While believe that there are many positive aspects to this proposal, the project does not come together as a cohesive whole. The various components – the rooftop addition, new windows, new window openings, masonry repairs, bay windows and balconies, storefronts and entries – all seem to be unrelated to one another. And in too many cases, they are unrelated to the historic refinery itself. This brand new landmark deserves a more comprehensive preservation approach.

Commissioners were also said to have appeared skeptical about some other modifications to the building, including the design of proposed retail entrances. Landmarks Chair Robert Tierney strongly urged the developers to find a way to preserve the iconic Domino Sugar sign, which is not included in renderings that have been released. His advice about finding a place for the sign: “Look hard.” Since the plant was landmarked last year, the Commission has to approve any changes.

GL Analysis: Domino’s Nightmare in Glass Leaves a Bitter Taste

It’s hard to know where to start in talking about the renderings that of the New Domino in Williamsburg designed by Rafael Viñoly. It’s long been known that this would be one of the biggest mega-projects planned for Brooklyn, with 2,400 units of housing and towers up to 40 stories tall. Until now, however, the only thing available have been renderings showing building outlines. Our initial reaction upon seeing the renderings posted by Brownstoner on Friday was that we were looking at something that was in equal measures like Co-op City and Battery Bark City encircling the deeply altered old Domino Plant. Several days later, no matter how much we try to get used it, it still is not a pleasant aesthetic combination. There is too much density. There is too much building height. The architecture reminds us of an apartment complex one would find on the outskirts of East Berlin, had Communism survived into the 2000s and had the East German leadership become a bit more architecturally adventurous. As for the addition to the Domino Plant, the five-story glass box would make a mockery of the landmarking process.

We can’t imagine that anyone on the Landmarks Preservation Commission could possibly vote to approve Williamsburg’s Nightmare in Glass with a straight face and a clear conscience. It is an affront to the very concept of historic preservation. As for the overall project, we await clearer representations of Mr. Viñoly’s buildings before deciding whether they are truly as distasteful as they appear to be in these early photos. On Friday, a commenter on Curbed said they look like Pez dispensers. We tend to agree.

We hope that community activists gear up to make their voices heard during the land use review process that will start later this year. A good place to start is by challenging this architectural attack on the Domino factory. It will so fundamentally change a landmark that it would almost be less painful if they had torn it down. It is wrong on many different levels.

The Williamsburg’s Nightmare in Glass must go.

More Renderings of the Domino Glass Box

We will refrain from extended comment on what we will be calling Williamsburg’s Nightmare in Glass until Monday. In the meantime, that should offer an indication of our general feelings about the modification to the landmarked Domino Sugar Plant on Kent Avenue that developers are proposing. Yesterday, Brownstoner offered a first look at renderings that had been revealed at a Community Board 1 committee meeting on Thursday night. Today, the Waterfront Preservation Alliance of Greenpoint & Williamsburg has more detailed renderings of the modifications to the factory building itself. (Notably, the renderings do not show the towers that would surround the building.) The Landmarks Preservation Commission will be holding a public hearing about the proposal on Tuesday, February 5 at 2:00 p.m., at the Municipal Building (1 Centre Street), 9th Floor North. According to the Alliance, “the big story” is the rooftop addition to the Filter House .” The firm Beyer Blinder Belle is proposing to put a five-story addition on top of the Filter House. If one includes mechanical bulkheads, the addition will be almost eight stories tall. The group will be meeting on Monday evening to formulate its own position on the Nightmare in Glass. The Beyer Blinder Belle proposal is similar to the glass addition that has been proposed to the landmark Battery Maritime Building in Manhattan, which would fundamentally alter that structure.

New Domino: Thicket of Towers, Plus a Glass Box on Top

[Photo courtesy of Brownstoner]

Our friends at Brownstoner attended last night’s Community Board 1 Landmark Committee meeting and caught the developer’s presentation about the New Domino. The photos are either riveting or alarming, depending on one’s point of view, and show a project that, as expected, would radically transform Williamsburg. The full set is over at Brownstoner, including the huge glass box that would be added to the top of the landmarked old Domino Sugar Factory. Now that the cat’s out of the bag, one hopes the developers post renderings online or make them available so that the public can get a close look at images that don’t show the plans for more or for less than they are. Everyone should have a chance to see them as the architect intends them to be before the LPC hearing on February 5.

"New Domino": Glass Box, Towers, No Pedestrian Bridge

Among the stranger details to emerge from a presentation that Rafael Viñoly gave about the planned New Domino development in Williamsburg yesterday was the fact that he wanted to build a pedestrian bridge to Manhattan, but that the developers had said no. Other relevant information sent to Curbed yesterday included a description of the big towers as consisting of masonry at the base and glass curtain walls on the upper floors and of the pedestrian waterfront access as a “sliver” that looked like “a footpath.” The Daily News reports this morning that a presentation at a Community Board One Hearing last night included renderings and that “some frowned on the design, calling it too boxy and too big for the Williamsburg waterfront neighborhood.”

The LPC attendee who shared the information from the LPC luncheon later added the following via a comment:

in the model he showed…the factory was dwarfed by the two flanking towers. The design for the towers was brick or some sort of red masonry on the bottom third and all glass curtainwall for the top two thirds. He also showed a map as to how this project will influence the area of north williamsburg and create a revitalization. I guess he hasn’t been there in a while.

The description included the five-story “glass box” the developers want to add to the top of main Domino building, which is landmarked. We will withhold judgment until renderings are made public, but it would seem that a five-story addition could render the landmarking rather, uh, meaningless. That particular element goes before the LPC on February 5. The plans are supposed to be available today at the Landmarks Commission Office, which is located in the Municipal Building on Centre Street on the Ninth Floor in the North Building. Further details and/or renderings, hopefully, a bit later today.

New Domino Marketing Campaign Underway

The campaign to publicly sell the massive project that developers want to build the New Domino on the site of the old Domino Sugar Plant in Williamsburg includes a poll sponsored by the developer that finds that people support the project and say that big buildings are okay in return for affordable housing. The interesting news and analysis are passed on by Norman Oder in his Atlantic Yards Report. He writes, in part:

It’s doubtful that any other megadeveloper has outdone Forest City Ratner in the effort to sway public opinion on a controversial project. But the developers behind the proposed New Domino project in Williamsburg, CPC Resources (CPCR) and its silent partner, Isaac Katan, are pushing the envelope in one aspect of the hard sell.

They sponsored their own poll, then ran an advertisement (click to enlarge) based on the poll, offering the unsurprising conclusion that residents in the area around the proposed New Domino site would accept increased density for increased affordable housing.

Those polled also said, not unreasonably, that the lack of affordable housing is a bigger problem than overdevelopment. And, perhaps predictably, longer-term residents were less exercised by the thought of development.

The marketing effort for the project–which does have opposition within the community, particularly to the massive size of the buildings–should be interesting to watch as it unfold.

Have Some "Living Domino"

This is what its creators have called the Living Domino, a reimagining of the old Domino Sugar factory in Williamsburg as a mix of affordable housing, arts space and a “vertical farm.” It’s on a blog called The Wild Green Yonder and here’s a bit of what the creator writes:

The southern two blocks of the site, as well as the upland block, would be devoted to a mixture of public open space and affordable housing…Similar to London’s heralded BedZed development, the housing units would have attached south-facing greenhouses to help heat the building and provide space for growing food.

The recently-landmarked refinery structure (and the iconic concrete-and-glass tower behind it) would serve primarily as an arts and cultural center, along the lines of the vision laid out at dominosugar.org. With hundreds of thousands of square feet between the two buildings, there could be extensive galleries and performing arts space, with plenty of room left over for a public library, offices, or a magnet school.

The roof of the refinery, covered in PV and solar hot water heaters, would serve double duty as a rainwater collector…The northern two blocks of the site would house a Center for Urban Ecology, complete with a prototype vertical farm…There’d be an amphitheater, with the existing figure-8 footprint of two old storage towers as stage. Finally, the five blocks of public waterfront would accommodate a water taxi stop, a plaza, commercial tilapia culture, and a marina.

It will be interesting to see how many iterations the New Domino plan goes and what the final shape of zoning for the site turns out to be. The developers have already spent a significant amount of money on lobbying to try to ensure the 2,400 units of housing they want for the site are constructed.

‘New Domino’ & Williamsburg: An Interesting Map

To get a sense of how much housing and how many people the New Domino project would add to Williamsburg, simply look at the map above. It comes from a post on Wild Green Yonder by Adam Brock. We reproduce it here, because it shows the impact in a graphic way. Simply put, New Domino would double the population of the neighborhood within a quarter-mile radius. The Domino development–which would be in the white rectangular shape on the waterfront–would have about 2,400 units of housing, mostly in towers up to 30-40 stories tall. The first ring in the map, which still has a lot of industrial properties, currently has 2,751 units of housing. The second ring totals 9,778 units. And the third ring out brings the overall total to 28,095 units. So, even viewed in the context of the bigger one-mile radius, Domino would boost population by nearly 10 percent. We only related this in order to show that New Domino would be a significant development with a major impact on schools, police & fire protection and transportation.

GL Analysis: Domino Landmarked, but Is It a Victory?

The main buildings of the old Domino Sugar factory in Williamsburg were landmarked yesterday in a vote that was, ultimately, a formality. As it’s one of the very few preservation victories in North Brooklyn recently, we should be jumping up and down and cheering. The buildings weren’t demolished before anyone moved to landmark them, for instance, the way the Old Dutch Mustard Factory was leveled to make room for a pedestrian structure. And they didn’t go up in a conflagration sparked by a drunk scavenging copper wire who was later said to be in Upstate New York, the way the Greenpoint Terminal Market did. They’re still standing, and they’ll be standing in the future. This rare waterfront victory of history over demolition is almost enough to bring tears to our eyes.

So, why are we wondering if this is a hollow victory?

For starters, one of the most significant structures on the Domino site–the Adant House–is not on the preservation list. Its loss will be an architectural tragedy no less significant than leveling the old waterfront warehouse in Dumbo or the Beard Street Warehouses in Red Hook. Likewise, the preservation vote doesn’t necessarily protect the iconic Domino sign. The developers have said they will try to preserve it, and most likely it will end up sadly detached and re-erected like the Pepsi sign in Long Island City or the Colgate Clock in Jersey City. Even this outcome, however, isn’t guaranteed.

The reason for tearing down the Adant building–that it would stand in the way of a new, tall building–leads us the other reason we’re concerned: the sheer magnitude of the New Domino plans. When all is said and done in about a decade, the surviving Domino structures will be surrounded by 30-40 story buildings, hemmed in by what will be the biggest Brooklyn development project after Atlantic Yards. The developers are planning 2,400 units of housing. Overall, the project will add so many new residents that it will double the population of the neighborhood within a 1/4 mile radius.

We will await the architect’s designs before deciding whether the New Domino is acceptable or a design nightmare. Our initial reaction is that a thicket of 30-40 story buildings is too much for that stretch of the waterfront. More to the point, however, is the fact that Williamsburg and Greenpoint will be taking in many thousands of new residents as dense new developments come on line. No steps are being taking to create the infrastructure to handle them, the most glaring omission of which is a total failure to strategically plan to expand the transportation infrastructure.

While we’re glad we won’t have to say goodbye to Domino the same way we’ve bid farewell to so many other buildings in recent years, we’re still wondering if that will only turn out to be a technicality. In the end, the preservation of the Domino plant is a victory, but it could turn out to be a very bittersweet, if not hollow, one.