Dumbo’s Tobacco Warehouse to be redesigned

Brooklyn Bridge Park officials are seeking proposals to turn the historic Tobacco Warehouse in Dumbo into a self-sustaining, year-round community center with a wide range of tenants offering arts, educational and civic programming and wouldn’t require any money from the park’s maintenance budget, according to the Brooklyn Paper. The current site is an open-air 19th century tobacco customs center that is now used primarily for wedding receptions. However, officials are trying to figure out how they’ll raise the $15 million annual maintenance budget of the larger Brooklyn Bridge Park, a development that stretches along the waterfront from Dumbo to Atlantic Avenue. The current plan calls for housing and other commercial development inside the park, and the decision to remove the Tobacco Warehouse makes it more likely that housing will remain part of the plan, critics say. One proposal, from Dumbo developer David Walentas, reportedly calls for a glass-roofed venue to house the St. Ann’s Warehouse theater company. Proposals are due Oct. 18, when park officials will release the new vision for the site. [Brooklyn Paper]