A Giant New Retail Development Is Coming to Bushwick (Or, Um, “Industrial Williamsburg”)
Photo via Massey Knakal
We’ve known for a while that Bushwick will be getting a mall in the form of the enormous forthcoming development at 82 Bogart, and now it looks like another mall-like entity is making moves in the area, via a huge new space at 215 Moore St. that the realtors at Massey Knakal are marketing as a major “redevelopment opportunity.” In the process, they seem to have invented an entirely new neighborhood: “Industrial Williamsburg.”
In fact, the entire listing is a bit of a gold mine for anyone who likes snottily debating the parameters of Bushwick versus Williamsburg or East Williamsburg (so, all of our commenters?), casually lumping in Lorimer L-stop-adjacent fare like Le Barricou and Bushwick Country Club as being in the same neighborhood as both Shea Stadium and Roberta’s. Shea, they write, “is a great place to catch unknown bands thrive in their obscurity before everyone else does. And in Industrial Williamsburg, cultural capital counts for a lot.”
Now, there’s a significant faction of people (again, our commenters) who’d argue that even the Morgan stop doesn’t actually constitute Bushwick at all—that it’s still East Williamsburg—and it’s worth noting that a good portion of the area is a designated Industrial Business Zone, and the Community Board’s been fighting hard to keep it that way. So there are more preposterous blanket terms out there than “Industrial Williamsburg,” to be sure, but it always seems worth noting when realtors try to sneak new, made-up neighborhood sub-divisions under the radar.
Anyway, the maybe-mall: Massey Knakal writes that the property “is made up of five adjoining industrial buildings fronting Moore Street and adjacent vacant land along Seigel and Moore Streets,” and invite potential tenants to “join the transformation in Morgantown of East Williamsburg/Bushwick” (seems they haven’t fully committed to the Industrial Williamsburg trope). The 2.3 acre space is zoned for both manufacturing and retail, and is already expected to go for around $29 million, according to Brownstoner. Press materials also tout its proximity to the aforementioned Bogart Mall (still being called “the gritty Chelsea market”) and note that it’s “positioned to lure national, marquee tenants to the area—early mentions have been Urban Outfitters and Guitar Center.”
It seems that there’ll be some legitimate manufacturing going on here, though, as current certificates of occupancy in the building include a steel manufacturer, and, more notably, a staple and blacksmith shop. On the far, far opposite end of the spectrum, groundbreaking new affordable “passive house” units have just hit the market in Bushwick. Well, there’s something to be said for balance, anyway.
Follow Virginia K. Smith on Twitter @vksmith.
