'Red Hoek Point' Development Is On Its Way to Fewer Parking Spaces

RED HOOK, BROOKLYN — Thor Equities, the developer behind "Red Hoek Point" — a planned project at 280 Richards St. spanning two-buildings and including 620,000 square feet of "creative office space" and 23,000 square feet of retail — received its first green light from Community Board 6 on Thursday.

Thor wants to cut the number of parking spaces the property must offer by about half, from the 2,048 required by zoning law for a development of Red Hoek Point's size to 1,106.

The reduction requires approval from the city's Board of Standards and Appeals, but on Thursday, the request received the conditional support of CB 6's land use committee. The matter will now be taken up by CB 6's general board next month. The board represents Park Slope, Gowanus, Red Hook, Carroll Gardens, and parts of both Cobble Hill and Boerum Hill.

Citing a study by design firm VHB that Thor paid for, Ethan Goodman, a Fox Rothschild employee helping to manage the project for the developer, said Thor expects its lots, to be built under the buildings, will hold 870 cars at their maximum level of usage.

Just 40 percent of Thor's tenants — anticipated to be in the technology, arts, media, and internet, or "TAMI," fields — will drive to the site, the developer estimates.

The VHB study concluded that about five percent will take taxis, 17 percent will take a bus, 26 percent will use the subway, five percent will bike, and seven percent will walk.

For that reason alone, Goodman argued that there is no need to construct more than 2,000 parking spots on the property.

But Thor is also interested in encouraging other forms of transportation, he continued. To that end, it is in talks with Ikea to see if that company's subway shuttle and ferry services can be expanded, Goodman said, adding that Thor might also invest in its own ground-based shuttle.

The development would also feature a valet bike parking system with room for 182 bikes, as well as enough non-valet racks on the premises to hold an additional 135 bikes, Goodman said.

The underground auto garages would also operate almost entirely on a valet system, he said, with enough room inside to allow people to drop off their cars without causing a backup on Beard Street, which the lots would feed onto.

Members of the community board expressed concerns that Thor didn't have a definitive alternative transit plan in place, suggesting it was conceivable that more people would drive to the site than anticipated. And the committee raised an issue with the company's intention to have the parking be paid, rather than free, which some members worried would drive cars onto surrounding streets.

Catherine Dannenbring, another project manager, said Thor anticipates that tenant companies will pay for their employees' parking, and Goodman emphasized that Thor believes the 1,106 spots it wants to build will handle all parking needs even if new investments aren't made in alternative transit.

Even so, CB 6's land use committee attached two conditions to its approval of the parking change: that Thor return to the committee with more detail about its exploration of alternatives to car-based commuting, and that it consider keeping 10 percent of its parking spaces free of charge.

The parking variance is one of two variances Thor is requesting from the city, the other of which applies to its use of the waterfront.

The variances had been highlighted as points of potential leverage community activists could use in their attempts to extract certain agreements from the privately funded project.

During Thor's first presentation to the board in early December, local organizers Karen Blondel and Charlene Nimmons, the two leaders of a group of residents known as the Red Hook Community Collaboration, had challenged Goodman and Dannenbring to engage with the community.

"This is our first time seeing you," Blondel said to the Thor employees at the time. "We're still looking to you to be a good neighbor and include us in [the] conversation."

Nimmons added that she hadn't been able to meet with any Thor staffers, despite repeated attempts to connect with the company.

"The only information that was being received was through the media," she said to Goodman and Dannenbring. "You only speak of your neighbors as Ikea and Fairway, not 38,000 residents in the area."

The organizers then delivered a draft Community Benefit Agreement (CBA) to the Thor staffers, requesting, among other things, that 10 percent of the building's office space be turned over to community organizations.

But the mood on Thursday was markedly different. Blondel and Nimmons said Thor had started meeting with community groups in recent weeks, including with the Collaboration, and that the CBA was a point of ongoing discussion. Nimmons even hugged Dannenbring goodbye as the Thor staffer left for the evening.

While Thor says its project would benefit the Red Hook community, the company has made no specific statement concerning the CBA or Red Hoek Point's capacity to bring on local workers. During Thursday's meeting, Dannenbring again said that high-end "TAMI" clients represent Thor's "number one target tenant." And asked after the meting about whether locals would have room to work inside Red Hoek Point, she spoke only generally.

"What we want to do is have genuine conversations with community stakeholders," Dannenbring said, adding that such discussions have to take place before the company can commit to anything specific regarding tenant issues.

But even so, Blondel said she wasn't upset that no conditions related to hiring or community spaces had been attached to the land use committee's approval of the parking variance.

The organizer said she remains focused on getting Thor to make space for companies that would hire locally, envisioning, for example, tech companies in the clean energy field renting space in the building and bringing on area workers.

But she said she wanted to do more than just find jobs for locals. Pairing people up with internships and apprenticeships was valuable too, she said.

"We're just trying to get our youth engaged again," she said.

Pictured at top: a rendering of the proposed Red Hoek Point. Rendering courtesy of Thor Equities.