Rare new construction planned in the Brooklyn Heights Historic District
Shake Shack’s president wants to build a clapboard house on a vacant lot.
In the Brooklyn Heights Historic District, where houses have been protected from demolition for a half-century, there are just a handful of vacant sites — for the most part parking lots or parking spaces — where new construction is possible.
So it’s noteworthy news for preservation-minded residents when construction plans surface for one of those sites.
Such is the case with 56 Middagh St., a property that consists of a clapboard house constructed in 1829 plus a 25-foot-wide lot where homeowner Tara Comonte parks her cars.