Earlier this week, construction permits were filed by SL Development to build a horizontal and vertical addition above the Embee Sunshade Company’s factory building at 722 Metropolitan Avenue in East Williamsburg. The 3-story building has been owned by the Brickner family who made umbrellas from their ground floor space since 1933. In more recent years, the owners have leased out the building to artists, providing affordable live-in studios, a workshop with art storage space, a black box theater and a screen-printing shop.
The permit filings show the overhauled warehouse will accommodate 69 apartments and raise the building from 3 to 7 stories. Rawlings Architecture is the applicant of record and a rendering published on SL Development’s webpage shows the brick façades of the factory building will be preserved while a modern addition with expansive industrial sash windows would rise above. The cellar level will hold parking for 17 vehicles, a laundry room, bike room and a fitness center. The ground floor would have retail spaces and upper levels will hold 8 to 14 apartments per floor.
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Google Streetview of Umbrella Factory at 722 Metropolitan Avenue via CityRealty
Last year the warehouse owner, Barnett Brickner, had been looking to sell the property, requiring all tenants to vacate their spaces. According to an article by DNAinfo, three tenants, Jeremy Jacob Schlangen and the married owners of arts organization Standard ToyKraft, Daniel Fay and Melanie Paterson, refused to leave the property and began raising funds to fight their eviction cases. In response, Brickner filed a lawsuit against the artists accusing them of foiling his attempts to sell the factory. Per The Real Deal, the umbrella maker was in contract to sell the building for $25 million in 2015 but the holdout tenants filed an application with the city’s Loft Board to establish the building as an Interim Multiple Dwelling. No transference of ownership has yet to be recorded in city records.
Google Earth View of the Umbrella Factory via CityRealty
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