The city has renamed a part of Fort Greene "The Brooklyn Cultural District." Now that dozens of arts and cultural groups have moved in, new residential buildings are going up. NY1's Jeanine Ramirez reports.
Construction elevators go up at every turn around the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM). The neighborhood is seeing an explosion of residential development.
A 52-story hi-rise at 250 Ashland Place is scheduled to have 586 rental units, about half of them set aside as affordable housing.
"We've been working on this project with the city of New York, who we purchased the land from since 2008," said Melissa Pianko, the executive vice president of Gotham Organization. "We started construction on it in 2013, and we anticipate delivering the first set of units this summer."
In the 1970s, the Brooklyn Academy of Music had trouble attracting audiences to what some considered a sketchy neighborhood. But it has become a catalyst for a remarkable renaissance.
In 2000, NY1 first reported plans to create an arts hub with BAM as its anchor. It was the brainchild of BAM's former president Harvey Lichtenstein.
Now, his vision is being realized; a cultural district is taking shape, with a concentration of performance spaces and arts companies, all within blocks of each other.
"Originally it was the BAM cultural district because it was just BAM. But then Mark Morris came Urban Glass, BRIC," said Andrew Kalish, the cultural development director of the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership.
Now that the arts organizations are moving in, so are new residents. More than a half-dozen high rises are being built.
A 32-story building known as BAM South is slated to have 50,000 square feet of cultural space, a public plaza, and nearly 400 apartments — 20 percent of them affordable. That lottery is expected to start this spring.
As for those affordable units on Ashland Place, the lottery for them ends April 11.
Officials warn that the lottery application process is tricky and lengthy and urge interested applicants to go to an information session.
"We believe that there's going to be an excellent mix of incomes and different demographic types in this building, which is going to create a really nice community that's complimentary to what's already here in Brooklyn," Pianko said.
For more information on the lottery, go to ashlandlottery.com, downtownbrooklyn.com, or nyc.gov/hpd