Emergency housing complex in Brooklyn to start construction

Construction is starting soon on a three-story, three-unit Downtown Brooklyn mini-complex that will serve as the city’s crisis housing for disaster victims, the New York Post reported.

The site, next to the Office of Emergency Management at 165 Cadman Plaza East, was chosen this month for the $1.1 million contract by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Brooklyn-based Garrison Architects was tapped as designer. Vienna, Va.-based American Manufactured Systems and Services’ proposal described two 822-square-foot units on the top two floors and a 480-square-foot one-bedroom handicap-accessible unit on the ground floor.

The building is slated to open in the early fall, the company told the Post.

The units will feature a desk, dining table, chairs, beds, an electric stove and microwave. OEM personnel, students, academics and architects are expected to take turns living there to offer feedback, the Post said. [NYP, 1st item] —Mark Maurer