WHITE PLAINS | Brookfield Commons Redevelopment

Revealed: The Prelude, White Plains

BY: STEPHEN SMITH ON AUGUST 8TH 2014 AT 6:00 AM


The Prelude, rendering by Dattner Architects

In most of America’s largest cities, post-war public housing towers have been torn down and replaced with more urban designs. New York City is the exception – whether because of the relatively good condition of our projects during the dark days of urban decline, or the militantly hostile attitude towards redevelopment held by tenant groups today.

To our north, though, the city of White Plains doesn’t have the same hang-ups. There, the White Plains Housing Authority is moving forward with redevelopment schemes for its aging public housing towers.


The Prelude, rendering by Dattner Architects

Among the city’s modernization projects is the Prelude, whose rendering YIMBY has stumbled upon. At the corner of South Lexington Avenue and Quarropas Street, just a few blocks from the White Plains stop on Metro-North’s Harlem Line, the Jonathan Rose Companies was selected to build a 10-story affordable housing development. Per the press release:

The Prelude […] includes 104 new affordable housing apartments, and a 13,500-square foot community center. It is the first phase in the redevelopment of Brookfield Commons (previously named Winbrook Campus), 450 public housing units build in 1949. The cost for this first phase will be $42.18 million. The future phases will replace all of the older, out-of-date towers with new, green mixed-income buildings, planned so that the current residents will never have to move off-site.

According to the Journal News, the community space will house “job-training programs and an employment center operated by the White Plains Youth Bureau.”

Groundbreaking occurred in April, and the new building is slated to be completed by next spring. Residents in the older brick buildings will then be moved into the new one, after which the old projects will be razed.

Master Plan:

This is nice. They are doing the same thing in Brooklyn actually as well, converting some of the older housing projects into new looking towers with modern features, and cladding along with improving the streetscape. Hopefully they could do this in Newark, NJ one day.

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It looks like a huge improvement. Folks are now ditching the “towers-in-the-park” idea and going for an urbanized layout. According to the site plan, another tower will front South Lexington, and Brookfield Street looks to be built through to Quarropas. Also, there’s the other eastern side of the complex that isn’t pictured in the site plan.


GMAPS

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And there’s plenty of these complexes in Manhattan (East Harlem, LES) that need to be totally razed and rebuilt in a similar fashion. Restore the grid!

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as I posted over a year ago now, the prelude is complete. I’m re-purposing this thread for the larger redevelopment of this housing neighborhood. Here is the next phase.

135 S. Lexington Ave | 9 floors | 129 units

When the entire complex redevelopment is finished, Brookfield Commons will house approximately 1,200 apartments, retail and recreation space and various amenities including bike racks, rooftop terraces outdoor sitting and play areas. The campus will have one-, two-, three- and four-bedroom apartments at affordable, workforce and market rates.

Plans call for Brookfield Street to be extended through the complex from East Post Road to Quarropas Street. A new road through the campus, “Future Street,” is also being planned. Officials said the idea is to reconnect Brookfield Commons to the street grid and downtown and break down the massive public housing ‘superblock’ bounded by South Lexington Avenue and Quarropas Street, and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and East Post Road.

The Prelude

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As plain as it gets…

Earlier today

The Prelude

135 South Lexington Avenue

As seen from dead end of Brookfield Street

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