Developers on Wednesday unveiled the design for a building at the Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park site in Brooklyn.
The 26-story luxury rental building next to the Atlantic Terminal will have a public school at its base and more than 300 residential units above it.
Catering to the needs of both a school and apartment building at the same time is a challenge for developers.
"Schools want to have large classrooms. They want to have big stairs. They need lots of air exchange. They also have gymnasiums and auditoriums and cafeterias. So we have large places of assembly," said architect Jonathon Marvel. "Very different from a residential building, which is lots of, and even, if it's a range from a studio to a three-bedroom apartment, they're largely smaller in scale."
Some residents in the area expressed their concerns, saying it will change the community they live in.
"It's a little bit startling," said one resident. "The scale of it is, makes you wonder about the character of the environment and how that environment is going to change."
"Well you know, I dont live in Brooklyn because I want to live in Manhattan, so I've always felt that this has been, the scale of this is way beyond what's reasonably proportional to the area," said another.
Work is expected to take two years to complete.