Residents of Dumbo are worried that a plan to move a New York Police Department Brooklyn property clerk’s office from
Downtown Brooklyn into their neighborhood would bring convicts who pick up their belongings to the new Dock Street development that includes an 18-story condominium tower and  new middle school, the New York Daily News reported. While the current property
office is located within the 84th Precinct at 301 Gold Street,
the new location, at 11 Front Street in a former police garage, would have less protection,
community member say. Community Board 2 district manager Rob Perris
also pointed out that the area is a tourist attraction thanks
to the new Brooklyn Bridge Park opening nearby. The NYPD selected the new location due to its proximity to the Brooklyn courts. City
Council member Steve Levin said he will try to stop the move because the
community was not consulted ahead of time. [NYDN]

Dumbo developer Jed Walentas ran into some hot water this morning when the Brooklyn Paper published a year-old e-mail exchange in which his language sounds somewhat less than politically correct. “The opposition is clearly panicked and turned out 75 or so folks,” he wrote to Brooklyn Bridge Park President Regina Myer, recapping a public hearing on his controversial Dock Street project, set to include residences and a public middle school. Fort Greene Council member Tish James and Marty Markowitz “agreed to not turn out dozens from the projects and make it a total racial mess… I got very good vibes from Marty and his staff,” he added. [more]

Toll Brothers is looking to build as high as it can get away with on its new 205 Water Street site in new Dumbo Historic District. The luxury home builder bought the vacant site for $8.6 million in December. Toll has a 120-foot, 70-unit tower in mind, but needs approval from the Landmarks Preservation Commission before moving forward. The neighborhood was rezoned last year, putting a 12-story limit on residential construction. “We’re going back and forth on height at this point,” said David Von Spreckelsen, a spokesperson for Toll. “If there were no Landmarks Commission, we’d go to 12 stories without question.” Toll has yet to give any clues as to what the building would look like. The site, on Plymouth and Water streets, had briefly been considered for the middle school component of David Walentas’ Brooklyn Bridge project, which was ultimately moved to Dock Street and approved last year after a long battle with Community Board 2. [Brooklyn Paper]

From the February issue:
Thirty years ago, the notion that the largely industrial area at the foot of the Manhattan and Brooklyn bridges would one day command some of the highest prices in Brooklyn real estate might have seemed about as plausible as an elephant taking wing. Nowadays, of course, Dumbo is well established as one of Brooklyn’s most sought-after neighborhoods. So much so that it has weathered the real estate downturn better than Brooklyn as a whole — a reality that the few developers planning projects in Dumbo hope continues. In December, the publicly traded luxury home builder Toll Brothers closed on a parcel of land at 205 Water Street where the firm intends to develop a condo with approximately 70 units. Toll paid $8.6 million for the land and hopes to start building by the end of the year. “Dumbo is fairly unique within the Brooklyn market,” said David Von Spreckelsen, a senior vice president with Toll Brothers. “It’s really been holding value better than the other neighborhoods in Brooklyn, and if you look at [condo] resales they’re at really strong numbers.”  [more]

The School Construction Authority allegedly colluded with a Brooklyn developer to propose a sub-standard middle school on Dock Street in Dumbo. According to Freedom of Information Law documents that Council member David Yassky’s office obtained, the SCA knew that the proposed Dock Street middle school would be at a size “compromised from [the SCA's] standards with premium costs due to the mixed use with the high-rise residential building.” According to a report from Yassky’s office, the SCA knowingly withheld information on making the safest, largest, most cost-efficient school, while promoting the Dock Street plan.

The City Council
is expected to vote tomorrow on Jed and David Walentas’ Dock Street
project in Dumbo, a 17-story residential building near the Brooklyn
Bridge that City Council member David Yassky says is too tall. Another
Council member, Letitia James, who is an opponent of the Atlantic Yards
project, has supported the Dock Street project because it will also
house a school. City Council speaker Christine Quinn is reportedly
supporting the project.