Two Trees Management, a Walentas family real estate firm, has won approval to move forward with its planned $1 billion Williamsburg, Brooklyn, waterfront complex. The complex, part of the River Ring project, will begin construction in 2024 now that the New York City Council has approved the project, reports the New York Post.
Two Trees managing director for external affairs David Lombino told the Post, “We’re seeing widespread awareness that there’s a desperate need for new housing, and it sometimes needs to go into wealthy neighborhoods.”
Two Trees boasts that the firm is known for its role in transforming the Brooklyn neighborhood of DUMBO where the company’s holdings include 12 buildings comprising more than 3 million square feet of commercial and residential space. Starting in 1974 with a 13-building purchase in DUMBO, Two Trees has built, rented or sold more than 800 apartments, and invested over $200 million into the neighborhood, including the development of Brooklyn Bridge Park and a donation of a public pavilion and restored carousel, contributing to the overall transformation of the area.
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The River Ring Waterfront Master Plan is described as a groundbreaking development on the Williamsburg waterfront that will create a new model for urban waterfront resiliency and transform the way New Yorkers interact with the water. River Ring responds to long-standing community plans and real-time community feedback by repurposing a former industrial site for much-needed housing and completing a continuous public waterfront in North Brooklyn.
The plan is anchored by a first-of-its-kind protected public beach and in-water park that will also insulate the inland community from flooding. And at a time when New York needs private investment, River Ring will deliver massive public infrastructure and economic benefits without public tax dollars.
The River Ring site will have a new pair of sloping apartment towers, one 710 feet high and the other reaching 560 feet in height.
Two Trees has agreed to pay for and operate water-based recreation and programs on three acres next to the new buildings. The rec site will offer kayaking, marine ecology studies and an accessible beach on the East River – not things that people think about when they think about Brooklyn. There will also be a new, 50,000 square foot YMCA facility.