Parkside / Calendonian Development Has Begun

This morning's Wall Street Journal reports that initial demolition of the former Caledonian Hospital is underway and that construction on a 270 unit building - mixed condo/rental - will soon begin.

The developer of the property at 100 Parkside, Joseph Chetrit, is one of the owners of the Sears Tower in Chicago and involved in some very large development projects in New York as well. According to Karl Fischer, the project architect, "The rental units may come on the market ... within a year."

In walking past in recent weeks, I've seen lights on and evidence of activity inside the current building. I hope that this means that the building was being prepared for demolition but - given the time that I was walking by - I suspect that it means that there are squatters in the building. I hope that if there are squatters, the new development isn't impeded too greatly. It will be nice to have an occupied apartment building and the activity it would bring to that stretch of Parkside; it is creepy to walk past a large, charmless, vacant building late at night.

Thanks, Sam.

Comments

[carrie]

Great news, though a bit bittersweet. This is one of few locations in the neighborhood that would have fit a new elementary school. (The lefferts gardens charter school people looked into leasing it back when.)

[babs]

Or a community/senior center. With Karl Fischer as architect, I'm expecting the worst.

[ceelledee]

I agree, Carrie. It was so so sad when the hospital closed! That place offered a real alternative to Kings County and Downstate. But, alas, it was closed as a cost-savings measure for its financially beleaguered parent, Brooklyn Hospital. Ever since, I'd been hoping, like you, that some other community "institution," such as a school, youth center or cultural center would claim that space. Still, the coming of new housing is a good sign. Certainly, it's a whole lot better than that hulk of an abandoned structure just sitting there! Clue me in, Babs, on what's wrong with Karl Fischer's work? Scarano's bad rep I'm familiar with, but Fischer, not so much.

[babs]

Karl doesn't play as fast and loose with FAR as Scarano, but his buildings are pretty synonymous with non-contextual, cheap-looking modern construction, in my book. See all the stuff around McCarren Park in Williamsburg for more. The NYT did a recent puff piece on him: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/08/realestate/08posting.html?_r=1 See also Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Fischer_(architect).

[Matt]

So are they constructing new buildings or jus retrofitting? The WSJ piece makes it sound like a gut Reno, not a new build. Or are they saving the historic building and demolishing the other part? In any event, it will be telling to see how this and the de-section-8-ing of its neighbor changes the neighborhood. I imagine it will have a similar effect, pro and con, to the conversion of the Jewish hospital in crown heights.