“New York can do better than the new Fourth Avenue.” That was the title of an article published earlier this year on Streetsblog, a Web site advocating pedestrian-friendly, livable streets. The article went on to lambaste the Department of City Planning for not requiring ground-floor commercial uses in the avenue’s new developments in the area that was rezoned in 2003.
“Instead of transforming Fourth Avenue into Brooklyn’s next great neighborhood, these new developments turn their back on the public realm, burdening the street wall with industrial vents, garage doors and curb cuts,” it noted.
Has city planning heeded the pointed criticism? Perhaps.
In the department’s proposed rezoning of the Gowanus area, the city is looking to rezone a stretch of seven blocks from 1st to Douglass streets on Fourth Avenue. (The strip had been left out of its larger 2003 Fourth Avenue rezoning because it was earmarked for industrial uses.) This time around, the department will mandate that a certain percentage of building frontage on
Fourth Avenue in the seven-block expanse — which, despite the addition of some new hip restaurants and bars, is still largely home to a number of auto-body shops — include active ground-floor uses.
In fact, the department went so far as to include a photo of the air vents on the new Crest condo project that fronts Fourth Avenue in its draft Gowanus rezoning proposal.
The image superimposed a large red “X” over the vents to indicate that design style would no longer be acceptable.
Still, many Fourth Avenue developers dispute the notion that the avenue’s new buildings have created an environment that is not attractive to pedestrians, or that it does not spur commercial activity on the street level.
Gregory Rigas, who has built two rental buildings on the avenue that do not include
active ground-floor commercial uses, contends that retail will follow the influx of residents to the avenue.
“I’m sure they’re going to build shops,” he said. “People have to go shop and eat somewhere.”
Jean Miele, who is constructing a development between President and Union streets that will include commercial space, concurs. “The market will dictate that there is more commercial,” he said.
Developer Dominic Tonacchio notes that he has included ground-floor commercial uses in all his buildings that have been constructed or are on the drawing board. He said that he and his partners intend to make the Fourth Avenue traffic medians outside his developments more aesthetically pleasing.
“I think once some of the buildings are done, we’re going to decorate the traffic medians, get permits to put flowers there, or something like that,” he said. “We want to do it to fix it up and make the area look nice. You’re going to see more and more people walking on Fourth Avenue.”
While there are still questions about whether the new Fourth Avenue buildings will end up creating a streetscape that’s more attractive to pedestrians than the current traffic-clogged mega-thoroughfare, there has definitely been an increase in retail since the 2003 rezoning.
On one block, between St. Marks Place and Bergen Street, three bars have opened up. A couple of blocks to the south, an Australian gastropub called Sheep Station opened in 2006. In a review of the restaurant a few weeks after it opened, a New York Times critic noted that “the place was packed with all kinds of people: older couples shouting over the characterless mix of music blasting in the barroom, a woman hand-feeding French fries to her girlfriend.”
The owners of Sheep Station are now planning to open a ramen restaurant on Fourth
Avenue and Degraw Street. Earlier this year, an Ethiopian restaurant called Ghenet, which has
an outpost in Manhattan, opened on Fourth Avenue and Douglass Street. An independently owned coffee shop with weekly open-mike nights, Root Hill Café, also opened earlier this year. The shop has generated attention for featuring a Clover coffee maker, a specialty machine that costs $10,000.
Developers are certain that as the avenue’s population swells, more such retail options
will follow.
“We have trendy bars near us now, and restaurants opening,” said Shloimy Reichman, who’s developing a building on Butler Street. “A couple hundred people have already moved into condos on the avenue, and as more come, services will follow. If someone had been on Fourth Avenue five years ago, they wouldn’t recognize it today. It’s definitely becoming a nicer place.”