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John Massengale AIA CNU's avatar

Towers are expensive to build. The taller they are the more the cost per sq ft. That fights affordability and requires more subsidies.

Glass towers are triple-whammy unsustainable (energy required to manufacture the high-tech glass, energy used by a glass towers up in the winter winds and the summer sun, life-cycle cost of the high-tech glass which loses R-value over two to three decades).

A Short Discussion of Residential Building Heights in New York City: https://blog.massengale.com/2023/03/23/nycresheight/

Norman Oder's avatar

If so, then what's the rationale for the developers asking for 1.6M square feet? Would they make up the costs by building condos?

Neural Foundry's avatar

The FAR calculations here are eye-opening! When you break down the desnity math from individual buildings to the full site, the real scale becomes undeniable. I've followed similar mega-developments and the denominator problem is always the same: adding open space sounds great until you realize population growth outpaces it by 2x. The comparison to London Terrace is particuarly telling because those small units create their own carrying capacity issues.

Don Doe's avatar

This density isn’t good for this location in Brooklyn on many levels. First off it’s going to be a bottle neck of pedestrians and traffic jams unable to easily disperse. Can the infrastructure handle simply the volume of water/waste? I just can’t wrap my head around the rationale to let a developer build an unsustainable project.

John Massengale AIA CNU's avatar

They would make it up by building expensive, luxury condos.