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.
“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]