Landmark Brooklyn Heights Building Will Become 14-Story Hotel

BROOKLYN HEIGHTS, BROOKLYN — A long-vacant landmarked building on Remsen Street will become a 14-story hotel, the Landmarks Preservation Commission decided last week.

The Commission voted unanimously after a public hearing Thursday to allow developers to turn 186 Remsen Street, known as the Franklin Building, into a new hotel. Architecture firm HOK first applied to construct the new building last fall.

The proposed changes to the building, which has been vacant since the 1990s, include excavating the areaway and the cellar, building the addition on top of the original structure, altering the entrance and creating an access ramp, records show.

The new 185-foot building will provide 37 rooms and be a total of 58,920 square feet.

The current building is part of the Borough Hall Skyscraper Historic District. It is a Romanesque Revival style commercial building and was first built between 1886 and 1887.

The building is the second oldest in the historic district, surpassed only by Borough Hall, which his found across the street, according to a building history by Brownstoner.

"This early office building is one of the last remaining examples of the time when Brooklyn was an independent and thriving city, with its own financial and business district, and a time when one of its leading citizens could put his mark on the landscape," the history reads. "...Banks, insurance companies, trusts, and other financial institutions all had headquarters or offices here."

When it was first built, the building was commissioned by Abiel Abbot Low, a member of the well-known Low family in Brooklyn Heights. One of Low's sons would go on to become mayor of New York City and was once president of Columbia College.

The Franklin building once had another story, but lost it in 1950. It was most recently home to a children's charity, but has remained empty since the organization left the building in the 1990s.

Commissioners did give the developers some caveats to their approval of the new hotel, though.

HOK must work with the Landmark Commission's staff during the addition to preserve the details of the building's terra cotta cladding. This will require a Certificate of Appropriateness before the work can begin.