Hold the sugar! City Council’s Domino redevelopment vote switched to May 14

April 28, 2014 By Lore Croghan Brooklyn Daily Eagle

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Attention Domino devotees! There’s a change of date for the Big Vote.

The City Council has moved its full vote on Two Trees Management’s Domino Sugar Refinery redevelopment to May 14 for procedural reasons.

The 11-acre mega-project on the Williamsburg waterfront will have to wait a little longer to clear its final hurdle.

Initially set for Tuesday, April 29, the vote date was changed because the City Planning Commission must first sign off on modifications that council members made in recent weeks to the Walentas family company’s residential and office development plan.

The Planning Commission’s staff will review the modifications and discuss with commissioners whether the changes are “in scope” with the plan the commission approved in March, a source explained. That would likely happen at the end of the commission’s public meeting on May 7.

The commission will need to eyeball proposed changes in the makeup of a review board that will oversee the programming of the project’s open space, another source explained.

The development of the mammoth Kent Avenue site has been a long time coming. Two Trees bought the site in 2012 for $185 million. Prior owner Community Preservation Corp. had purchased the property in 2004.

Three landmarked 1880s-vintage factory buildings constructed by the Havemeyer family – and an iconic 40-foot yellow neon Domino sign – will be preserved by Two Trees.

Under an 11th-hour agreement made with the de Blasio Administration, the developer will increase the number of affordable apartments in the $1.5 billion project to 700 from a proposed 660.

The affordable units will occupy 537,000 square feet of the 2.9 million-square-foot development, which will have a total of 2,282 apartments.