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NEW YORK | Monitor Pt (40 Quay St) | 640 / 490 / 260 FT | 56 / 41 / 21 FLOORS

Thought we had a thread for this…

MTA reveals ‘Monitor Point’ redevelopment project of Brooklyn waterfront warehouse

https://www.amny.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/211018-40-Quay-Renderings-1200x675.jpg

By Kevin Duggan
October 20, 2021

Quote:

MTA unveiled plans to redevelop a transit warehouse at the north Brooklyn waterfront into a mixed use tower that would contain up to 900 new apartments at 40 Quay St., according to a Wednesday evening announcement.

Developer Gotham got the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s go-ahead for the nearly $39 million deal to lease the parcel of land in Greenpoint that currently houses New York City Transit’s wash facility and erect a high-rise building dubbed Monitor Point.

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”The MTA has a statutory obligation to retrieve market value for disposition of any property,” said acting MTA chief Janno Lieber in a statement Oct. 20. “The in-kind improvements and revenue generated will help fund transit system improvements and ensure the MTA continues to deliver reliable service for all riders.”

Gotham plans to construct the building with the 900 apartments, a quarter of which will be set aside for people with incomes averaging 60% of the federally-designated Area Median Income, or AMI, which equates to $64,440 for a family of three.

Brooklyn nonprofit RiseBoro Community Partnership will help manage the income-restricted units.

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The development will also offer a publicly-accessible waterfront walkway fronting the East River and the Bushwick Inlet, and a new home for a museum dedicated to the Civil War-era ship the USS Monitor, from which the project gets its name.

The steam-powered ironclad vessel was built in the neighborhood in 1862, before it set sail to fight for the Union in the American Civil War at the Battle of Hampton Roads, but sank in a storm off Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, later that year killing 16 sailors. A street in Brooklyn, about two miles east of the Monitor Point site, is named for the Monitor.

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Before Gotham can begin work on the tower, the private company will construct a new purpose-built wash facility for NYCT to move to at 208 Varick Ave. in East Williamsburg.

The developers will also try to get a rezoning of the almost 2-acre lot from the city to build taller than currently allowed. For that, the proposal will have to make its way through the lengthy public review known as the Uniform Land Use Review Procedure, or ULURP.

The public waterfront access and below-market-rate units are requirements under city regulations if municipal officials green-light the zoning change.

Monitor Point will also include new home for NYCT’s Emergency Service Units, currently stationed at the northern tip of Greenpoint at 65 Commercial St. Moving out those emergency vehicles will finally allow the city to finish a 16-years-delayed green space named Box Street Park at that lot.

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The deal could bring in almost $39 million for the transit agency if the property gets rezoned, $7.1 million if the city denies the rezoning and the developer builds as-of-right, according to MTA documents.

The funds would go toward MTA’s massive $54.8 billion capital plan for projects like new station elevators and updating the subway’s signaling system.

While the project sailed through the MTA board vote Wednesday, it has not found favor with locals since the agency first opened a bidding process for the property in 2019, including area Assemblymember Emily Gallagher and the community board, who have opposed the redevelopment and instead pushed for a park for the publicly-owned lot.

Residents spoke out against it again ahead of the full board meeting, including one member of the local green space advocacy group Friends of Bushwick Inlet Park.

“We believe the deal is a betrayal of public trust and we call on the MTA withdraw from the conditional designation of Gotham for the redevelopment of 40 Quay in Greenpoint and to work with the Greenpoint-Williamsburg community,” said Katherine Conkling Thompson, a co-chairperson of the group. “The deal you have struck with Gotham is just a drop in the bucket [of the overall MTA capital budget].”

Gotham plans to start an environmental analysis and community outreach next year and will launch its ULURP application in 2024, before breaking ground at the end of that year, according to the project’s website.

https://www.amny.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/40-Quay-Site-Plan-LARGE-1-700x453.jpg

Website

https://www.monitorpointonquay.com/

First news I've seen on this in a while. Didn't realize a tower of 600ft was on the table. Think that could be the tallest tower on the Brooklyn/ Queens waterfront (just above Domino and HPS buildings)

https://greenpointers.com/2025/03/20/gre...ential-high-rises-on-the-bushwick-inlet/

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An upcoming CB1 land use meeting on April 1 will feature a presentation on two potential new high-rise buildings sitting directly on the Bushwick Inlet. Local environmental advocates say these massive buildings would disturb local wildlife, hinder the inlet’s ability to help prevent future flooding, and fail to address the neighborhood’s dire lack of affordable housing. The buildings would sit on a parcel of land owned by the MTA, known as 40 Quay.

“MTA’s developer Gotham Org is seeking a zoning enhancement to build two huge luxury towers – 60 stories (30% taller than any on the Northside & Greenpoint) and 45 stories tall – on the shore of Bushwick Inlet and looming over the park,” says Save the Inlet, a local group opposing the new buildings.

https://i0.wp.com/greenpointers.com/app/uploads/2025/03/monitor-point-rendering-1.jpg?w=1264&ssl=1

Some more info on the Monitor Point website:

https://www.monitorpointonquay.com/

Great news. Nice to see some greater height, and looking forward to the new museum.

They're already complaining...

https://brooklyneagle.com/articles/2025/...test-high-rise-plan-near-bushwick-inlet/

BTW, River Ring would still be the tallest on the Brooklyn waterfront if it revives...
https://skyscraperpage.com/forum/showthread.php?t=241192

https://commercialobserver.com/2025/04/gotham-organization-mointor-point-greenpoint/

Five Questions With Gotham Organization’s Bryan Kelly on Greenpoint’s Monitor Point

BY MARK HALLUM
APRIL 22, 2025

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Commercial Observer: How did you get involved in this project?

Bryan Kelly: Monitor Point resulted from a 2019 request for proposals issued by the MTA, and we approached it through a unique lens in that we were partnered up with the Greenpoint Monitor Museum, who owns the adjacent waterfront facing parcel. [The lot is] about 35,000 square feet, and it’s irregularly shaped. So the RFP called for respondents to identify a location in which the MTA mobile wash unit and material control storage unit could be relocated long-term to effectuate the goals of the 2005 rezoning, which was to develop housing on the site.

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Have you found that the City Council is receptive to the plan as you head into the Uniform Land Use Review Process (ULURP)?

What I can tell you about our past interactions going through ULURP processes is it can be an opportunity for a healthy debate and negotiation. However, if you look at our track record, we rezoned the innovative Urban Village [in East New York, Brooklyn] — 10.5 acres, 1,975 apartments, 3 acres of open space — with nearly unanimous support from the community board. We rezoned Broome Street development in the Lower East Side, another smart but tough community board, where we spent years talking, went through the process, negotiated and wound up with a successful rezoning and then built the development.

We engage in these processes with the understanding that to create transformation in the neighborhood requires an understanding of different audiences and different communities, so from where we started out to where we’re at today, we’ve been making revisions. We’ve been thinking differently about the open space. If you look at the original design of this development as compared to the proportions of the buildings and what the open space looks like today, that’s a reflection of our open ear, and that’s what we’re going to do the rest of the way.

We would never enter a process that we didn’t think we could get there. But any negotiation is a series of aspects.

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With Brooklyn’s community board voicing some concerns over Monitor Point’s height and impact on the local environment, what have negotiations been like?

We intend to preview the development with the community board, pre the formal ULURP process. We’ve done at least 50 to 60 outreach meetings with constituents across labor, civic organizations, religious institutions, block associations, housing organizations, and the local open space groups we’ve met with. I would say there’s been a tremendous amount of support.

There are some voices who have concerns, but we’ve also met with them, and so that grassroots approach is what we’ve done on all of our developments, but there has been no negotiation with the community board because we’re not in the public process. But we do intend to have voluntary communications about further aspects. But as you can see, we’ve got a website with all the detailed information, there’s even prospective Q&A on there, and our grassroots approach will continue.

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And how are you working with community groups that are less enthusiastic about the project?

I think in terms of the open space, we’ve been really focused on it by creating the public walkway, which is what the community sought from the 2005 rezoning. Thinking about natural habitat, thinking about resiliency is a huge issue, really ensuring that from climate change any improvements made, both to Bushwick Inland Park that’s under construction, the future housing, the museum, the shoreline, are all defensible. And if anything, we would support the improvements made to Bushwick Inlet Park as opposed to being a detriment.

You can see the evolution from the initial RFP to where we are now, and really the development of the open spaces to make this a place that is welcoming versus existing.

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From a debt financing standpoint, how have you been funding this development?

We don’t own either property and we never will. We will have a ground lease structure with the MTA, so three years of construction, plus a 99-year leasehold. The museum continues to hold its land. We’re buying air rights from the museum, so the total capitalization of the development is expected to be north of $700 million

We’re self-funding. We fund all of our equity. We fund all of our pursuits and will get a construction loan and will close vertically on our capital to construct the housing developments. But one of the key parts about this is we won’t close on our debt financing until we have spent nearly $100 million. Why is that important? Well, we won’t own the land until we close on our construction financing. So it’s an investment in the community and the public infrastructure that we spent all the money on the engineering and the architecture.

So we’re spending $100 million just to get to the ground lease, which is a testament of our conviction that A, this is financially feasible, but B, is that it provides the public benefits that we believe will be warranted to get through a ULURP process and ultimately through engagement with the community and the elected officials to get to that outcome.

https://greenpointers.com/2025/06/12/gre...ntial-development-on-the-bushwick-inlet/

Greenpoint Considers New Monitor Point Residential Development on the Bushwick Inlet

by Emma Davey
June 12, 2025

Quote:

Though Monitor Point’s towers will be taller than most other local high rise buildings, at 400 and 650 feet, Williamsburg’s River Ring project currently dwarfs them all at 560 and 700 feet. Gotham does not anticipate the scale impacting the nearby park space, with “limited impact from any shadows due to [the] project site being north of Bushwick Inlet Park” (quote pulled from slideshow presentation).

Gotham has committed to making 25% of Monitor Point residences permanently affordable. In New York City, the calculus of determining “affordability” often leads to a rather loose definition of the term. Monitor Point will open affordable housing mostly to those making 40-60% area median income (AMI), with some reserved for those making 80%. In the New York City housing lottery system, AMI ranges from 30-165%; the lower the AMI, the more accessible a project is to someone with a lower income.

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The 2005 Greenpoint-Williamsburg waterfront rezoning irrevocably altered the area, allowing larger, higher-density construction, and with it, a new influx of residents. Greenpoint and Williamsburg have added the most housing in New York City since 2010, totaling nearly 25,000 units. According to data from the NYU Furman Center, most of that new construction was market-rate, with only 15% income-targeted. Rents have also increased in tandem—Greenpoint and Williamsburg pay some of the country’s highest rents overall. The median one-bedroom rent in Greenpoint was about $2,600 in 2015, ten years later, it’s a whopping $4,587.

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In the slideshow presentation, Gotham developers posited that without the upzoning and the private-public partnership, the lot would likely turn into luxury or market-rate development. Union representatives also spoke in favor of the project and its potential for job creation.

Those look great... Bravo!

Did they mention who designed it? not sure if i missed it. It's giving me SHoP vibes.

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Originally Posted by BK1985 (Post 10486348)

Did they mention who designed it? not sure if i missed it. It's giving me SHoP vibes.

It does look like SHoP's work. But here's the team...

https://a4.pbase.com/o12/06/102706/1/175819739.rQAUyFPJ.d9.jpg

FXCollaborative consistently impresses. This should be beautiful.

Looks like a cross between the new Disney headquarters and the Brooklyn Tower.

Agreed, they do really good quality work.

Also would have though SHoP. But FX Collaborative usually does great work when they don't design boring glass towers. Brooklyn deserves this since (as far as I know) River Ring is dead.

https://newyorkyimby.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/River-Ring_AERIAL-2-777x437.jpg