In W’burg, tech entrepreneurs plan “Hackert0wn” — replete with sleeping pods and a hydroponic farm

When it comes to New York City real estate, some of the city’s most successful figures have certainly dreamed big. But Sean Auriti, head of the Hackert0wn initiative, a proposed Brooklyn workspace set to include a 38-foot silo for the testing of “flying machines,” among other wild ideas, has, perhaps, outdone himself.

Auriti, the co-founder of Brooklyn-based “hackerspace” Alpha One Labs, has proposed an ambitious re-use project on a 5,000-square-foot Parking Lot Near The Graham Avenue L train stop in Williamsburg, Capital New York reported. The six-story collective, which he hopes to build out of shipping containers, would include a hydroponic farm, a lecture hall, “sleeping pods,” as well as retail and office spaces.

The campaign to build Hackert0wn says it needs to raise mere $1.5 million to get the project “off the ground,” according to Capital New York, most of which will go to the cost of buying the lot, which is owned by a local family, according to Auriti’s proposal on IndieGogo.com, a site that helps groups raise funds. Unfortunately, Hackert0wn has only raised $3,000 so far. But Auriti is undetterred.

“It’s going to happen,” he told Capital New York. [CapitalNY] — Guelda Voien