Take a virtual tour of Empire Stores with interactive 3-D floor plans

January 13, 2015 By Lore Croghan Brooklyn Daily Eagle

Empire State Of Mind: Midtown Equities is releasing new renderings of its Empire Stores redevelopment project in DUMBO. Renderings courtesy of Visual House

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Can’t wait to get inside Empire Stores?

While renovations are ongoing, try the next best thing — interactive three-dimensional floor plans that let you do a virtual walk-through of DUMBO’s iconic former coffee warehouses.

Midtown Equities, which is redeveloping the landmarked 19th-Century waterfront buildings, is unveiling the 3-D space tour on empirestoresdumbo.com, its marketing website.

“It’s better than a rendering. It’s better than a video,” Midtown Equities’ Jack Cayre told the Brooklyn Eagle.

“We’re taking the guesswork out of what the space will look like,” he said. “This will be an extremely helpful tool.”

The interactive floor plans — which were designed to attract office tenants — show what the upstairs floors of the Water Street project would look like if the interiors were built out and furnished.

Two types of office space are featured — the kind in the repurposed 150-year-old brick warehouse buildings and the kind in the new glass penthouse that will be constructed on the warehouses’ rooftop.

“Both are appealing in their own unique ways,” Cayre said.

A Chelsea-based firm, Floored, designed the interactive floor plans. It uses advanced vision science to create a “hyper-realistic virtual tour” that’s “somewhat akin to a video game,” according The Real Deal.

Midtown Equities is also posting new project renderings on the website.

In addition to drawings of office spaces, some renderings depict restaurants in the complex — which will have a beer garden and an elegant eatery on the roof and a French brasserie on the ground floor. Others show appealing open-air spaces with people hanging out.

Cayre said the website, with its newly released marketing materials, aims to give prospective office tenants a feel for the “urban campus” he’s creating.

“It really shows you what life could be like at Empire Stores,” he said.

Brooklyn Bridge Park gave Midtown Equities and its project partners Rockwood Capital and the HK Organization a 96-year lease for the property, which has about 430,000 square feet of rentable space. West Elm has signed a lease there for 150,000 square feet for its corporate headquarters, a store and a coffee shop.

Cayre said he expects Empire Stores to be ready to open in the fall.