High-profile Brooklyn landlords fight landmarking of downtown skyscrapers


Brooklyn Municipal Building and SL Green CEO Marc Holliday

Brooklyn’s most powerful landlords, including SL Green Realty, Louis Greco and the Treeline Companies, are campaigning against a city plan to landmark nearly two dozen tall buildings in Downtown and Brooklyn Heights, the Brooklyn Paper reported. They are arguing that the so-called “Skyscraper Historic District” plan, which would affect the Municipal Building and a group of early-1900s Structures Along Court Street, would prevent owners from taking advantage of the demand for retail.

“It makes little sense to move forward on a designation that will impede Downtown Brooklyn’s ability to attract high-quality … retail tenants,” opponents said in a letter to Landmarks Preservation Commission Chairman Robert Tierney earlier this month.

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“This is crushing us,” said Jordan Barowitz, who lives in a building at 75 Livingstone Street, the only residential tower within the proposal, but also works for the Durst Organization. “It would put a tremendous burden on people who own property in district — and in the end what are we saving?”

The district would include Brooklyn’s Borough Hall, the 14-story Temple Bar Building On Court Street, the 35-story Montague-Court Building at 16 Court Street and the Municipal Building. [Brooklyn Paper]