Under the Third Street Bridge, the Gowanus Canal’s brown-green water is dotted with litter and small oil slicks. Skeletal industrial signs advertising long-defunct products rise in the distance. Brick warehouses line the embankment, many with shattered windows and facades adorned by decades-old graffiti.
Change is now lapping up against the shores of the Gowanus, though, as the city readies a rezoning plan.
The area around the canal started declining in the mid-20th century; in the 1960s, Red Hook’s port, which the canal connects to, lost most of its business to the advent of container shipping.
But now it’s no secret that the neighborhood — roughly bounded by Fourth Avenue to the east, Smith Street to the west, Baltic Street to the north and 14th Street to the south — is plum Brooklyn real estate. Even though Gowanus has not seen significant new construction in the past half-century, it is situated between well-heeled Carroll Gardens and Park Slope.
Sensing the area’s promise, big-time developers Boymelgreen and Toll Brothers have bought up large parcels along the canal and cooled their heels, awaiting a rezoning for residential use that’s been spoken of for many years.
They probably won’t have to wait much longer.
Last month the Department of City Planning unveiled a framework aimed at guiding community discussions about the rezoning, which must take into consideration a host of complex land-use issues and competing interests. The city’s framework proposes dividing Gowanus into five sub-areas, with industrial uses preserved in three of the five regions. The proposal mostly concentrates residential use in the northeastern part of the neighborhood.
Aside from demands for residential development — and concerns about what that development might look like — some businesses with deep roots in the neighborhood are calling for the preservation and promotion of industrial uses.
Meanwhile, many residents are concerned about pollution in Gowanus, and how developers and the government will address the toxicity known to exist at sites along the canal (see below).
“We expect these discussions to continue for some time before a rezoning is proposed,” said Rachaele Raynoff, the Department of Planning’s spokeswoman. “The framework was developed based on what we saw with the area’s existing conditions.”
Developer expectations
David Von Spreckelsen, a Toll Brothers vice president, said the development firm expects the city to rezone the Toll-owned parcels in Gowanus before a larger rezoning occurs.
“We are working with the city, and we are fairly confident that we will get rezoning for our sites within the next year,” said Von Spreckelsen, adding that the site-specific rezonings would likely be consistent with larger rezoning plans.
Toll Brothers owns two parcels in Gowanus between Carroll and Second streets on the western side of the canal. Von Spreckelsen said Toll plans to build townhouses, multifamily houses and mid-rise condos on the sites. All together, Toll intends to construct around 500 units, 125 of which will be designated as affordable housing.
Boymelgreen Developers has purchased parcels of land across the canal from Toll Brothers’ planned project. Boymelgreen plans to build a mixed-use project known as Gowanus Village, and it too will have hundreds of units.
Von Spreckelsen said he is not overly concerned about the competing development.
“I like my site better because it’s on the Carroll Gardens side of the canal, which I think is the preferable side in Gowanus,” he said.
The side of Gowanus that borders Park Slope, however, is the one that’s seen new development in the past couple of years, including two hotels by prolific developer Sam Chang: a Holiday Inn Express on Union Street and a Comfort Inn on Butler Street.
Whole Foods Market has also broken ground on this side of the canal for a store. The project has become a lightning rod for concerns about polluted properties in Gowanus (see below) and the reconciliation of developers’ plans with the area’s industrial past.
Art and commerce
Neighborhood residents are also seeking a balance when it comes to the rezoning.
“The city is considering every aspect of uses on the canal,” said Craig Haberman, Community Board 6’s district manager. “It’s our job to bring all the various interests on the canal to the attention of the city. We want to think about what’s going to be a constructive use of the Gowanus imprint, whether that means more housing or more business.”
As in many of the city’s formerly thriving industrial areas, much of the new business that’s found a home in Gowanus over the past couple of decades is related to the arts. Artists have established studio space in a number of abandoned warehouses.
One organization, Issue Project Room, converted a silo along the canal into a performance venue. During the summer, Rooftop Films screens movies on the roof of the Old American Can Factory, which is across the street from the Whole Foods development. And there are enough artists in the neighborhood to support an annual Gowanus artists studio tour.
One artist, Sasha Chavchavadze, founded the gallery Proteus Gowanus in an old factory on Union Street. Chavchavadze is concerned that new developments in Gowanus will push out the arts community.
“I have sympathy for small industry, and I consider the artists who work here part of the area’s small industries,” said Chavchavadze. “The way this neighborhood is going, people are going to be displaced. I’d like to see the developers who are coming in support the local arts organizations and help us stay here.”
Toxic future for Whole Foods site?
Whole Foods Market has broken ground for a Gowanus-area store, but the area’s history may turn out to be problematic for the planned 68,000-square-foot development.
An oil terminal and coal yard operated out of the Whole Foods site on Third Street and Third Avenue in the first half of the 20th century, and the two-acre parcel is known to have significant quantities of toxic chemicals, including xylene, which can cause brain damage, and naphthalene, which destroys red blood cells and is likely a cancer-causing agent.
Whole Foods is currently working with the Department of Environmental Conservation to clean up the parcel and says it has removed 11,000 tons of contaminated soil. In late January, the DEC released a draft report saying the site is no longer a “significant threat to public health or the environment.”
According to Walter Hang, the president of Toxics Targeting, a firm that provides environmental data about properties in New York and New Jersey to prospective home or land buyers, the fact that Whole Foods has only committed to a partial cleanup of the site is potentially troubling.
“What you want to see is a cleanup plan that brings the site into compliance with all cleanup standards,” said Hang. “Why isn’t Whole Foods cleaning up everything?”
Toxics Targeting prepared a report for The Real Deal that maps and profiles sites within a mile radius of the Whole Foods location. Contamination was reported at the Whole Foods site as well as dozens of toxic releases at the Con Edison facility across the street, according to the report. “You can tell they have extensive toxic pollution on [the Con Edison] site and they’re not in compliance with all regulations,” said Hang.
Hang pointed to the development of a Lowe’s store in Gowanus as a cautionary tale for Whole Foods.
Lowe’s built a store on the former site of a manufactured gas plant in 2003. The home-improvement retailer did a voluntary cleanup of the site before starting construction, removing tar that was known to exist at depths of 60 to 80 feet. Lowe’s did not clean up all of the tar because the company said it could not access the contamination by conventional excavation techniques. Tar contamination has now been reported on the site a few feet from the grocery store next to the Lowe’s, a Pathmark.
“What you have in this case is a classic example of a developer failing to look at, and then clean up, the whole site,” said Hang. “I’m not passing judgment on Whole Foods, but if you were Whole Foods, why would you want to operate a store on a contaminated site when your corporate image is based on healthy food and a healthy lifestyle?”
Representatives from Pathmark and Lowe’s declined to comment on the status of toxicity levels at the sites where their stores are located. Whole Foods Market did not return calls for comment.
Hang said there’s no way around the fact that Gowanus is heavily polluted, but he is optimistic about the prospect of the area’s environmental hazards being addressed.
“Gowanus is a wonderful laboratory for cleaning up the environment and allowing for economic development,” he said.
Go to map: Selected properties with reported environmental concerns in the Gowanus Canal area