Red Hook Stores, 275 Conover Street: Review and Ratings

Review of 275 Conover Street by Carter Horsley

This very impressive and sprawling, waterfront building at 275 Conover Street between Van Brunt and Conover streets in the Red Hook section of Brooklyn was converted from commercial use to apartments in 2006 by the O’Connell Organization and designed by Doban Architecture.

It has only 23 rental apartments.

The 5-story building was erected as a warehouse in 1869 and in 2006 Fairway, the grocery concern, took over a large facility on its first floor, leading Francis Morrone to observe in a May 31, 2007 article in The New York Sun that “Red Hook is red hot,” adding that this “majestic” building was “beautifully restored by Greg O’Connell, who belived in Red Hook’s rebirth when others thought it was a joke.”

An on-site, co-generation plant provides about 90 percent of the building’s energy needs.

The New York Watertaxi has a stop in front of the building.

The building is adjacent to a long pier building to the south on the other side of which is the former Revere Sugar Factory site on which Thor Equities, which is led by Joseph Sitt, is planning a development with 900 apartments, 250,000-square feet of retail space and 400,000 square feet of parking.  A March 6, 2015 article by Ondel Hylton at 6sqft.com published a rendering of the Thor Equities’s plan designed by Magnusson Architecture and Planning. The article noted that Thor acquired the site in 2005 and two years late demolished the facility’s great metal-clad dome, adding, however, that its redevelopment plan included a domed atrium as an entrance to a “possible big-box store.”

“The site,” the article continued, “has already had its fair share of failed prospects in the past decade,” adding that “Back in 2010 rumors surfaced that a potential mega-dormitory would be built; in 2012 the site was eyed as a basketball training facility for the Brooklyn Nets; and in 2004, Baltimore-based Struever Bros. Eccles & Rouse proposed sprawling, 70-acre retail, residential and commercial development surrounding the Erie Basin to counter IKEA’s chosen plan.”

A November 1, 2012 article by Tony Karon at nation.time.com noted that Hurricane Sandy severely damaged the Fairway store.

A June 20, 2014 article by Joanne Kaufman at nytimes.com noted that Michael Shannon, the actor, and his wife, Kate Arrington, lived in the building when Sandy hit and they had to decamp to Harlem where her mother lives.

“Three days later they were happily back in Red Hook, their third-floor apartment undamaged and, thanks to a generator, power in their building restore.  It took much longer for Fairway Market to return, which, unsurprisingly, delighted Mr. Shannon.  No cars! No crowds! No cameras!  ‘I can barely sit still when Mike says “I liked it during Sandy when it was closed,’ said Ms. Arrington with a laugh.  ‘I want to say: What are you talking about?  It’s the best thing in the world.  We’re both down there every day….She conceded, though, that ‘there is something really nice when, after Sandy, we were living in a place that no one had any reason to be except for us.  But don’t let Mike tell you he doesn’t enjoy Fairway!”

A June 1, 2016 article at therealdeal.com indicated that Thor Equities was planning a 623,000-square-foot office and retail development designed by Norman Foster on the Red Hook waterfront.

Bottom Line

One of the city’s great 19^th Century waterfront warehouses converted into 23 large apartments in Red Hook over a large Fairway store that was able to reopen after Hurricane Sandy damaged it, but not the apartments.

Description

The red-brick building has large, arched, multi-paned windows, many of which have large dark shutters.

Heavy timber joists were removed in the conversion to create a large and very attractive interior courtyard and then reused as wood paneling at the entrance to each apartment.

Amenities

The building has a part-time doorman, a gym, and a landscaped roof deck with grilling station.

Apartments

Apartments have 13-foot-ceilings.