Since its 2021 rezoning, the area surrounding Brooklyn’s Gowanus Canal has become one of the borough’s hottest locales for real estate development. At the time of the rezoning, the de Blasio administration estimated that the area—one New York City’s four superfund sites—would gain 8,500 new apartment units by the year 2035.
Just earlier this week, AN reported on a new mixed-use development in Gowanus designed by Bjarke Ingels Group and dencityworks | architecture. On the heels of this, Tankhouse and SO – IL have new renders of a residential tower located nearby.
Sited at 450 Union Street, the highrise builds upon tropes SO – IL has established in its previous residential work: a complex massing that takes advantage of setbacks and non-orthogonal facade orientations, leaving each unit with unique sightlines and multiple perspectives. To meet these criteria, Tankhouse, a Brooklyn-based developer, only builds on corner lots. The new tower bucks the alignment of the street grid with sawtoothed elevations, orienting window views down the length of the canal and away from the facades of nearby structures. The hope is that this strategy will maintain the unit’s views, even as Gowanus densifies and builds taller in the coming years.
Clad in what appears to be green-gray concrete masonry, the 200,000-square-foot, 20-story building will include 158 rental units and a ground floor retail podium, according to New York YIMBY. An unspecified portion of these units are set aside for affordable housing. The masonry facade planned for 450 Union recalls that of 450 Warren, SO – IL and Tankhouse’s first New York City residential project, located nearby in Boerum Hill.
Because of setbacks, the building is wedding-cake shaped, allowing for outdoor terraces on the upper levels. Other tenant amenities include a fitness center, coworking spaces, children’s playroom, art studio, and courtyard.
SO – IL and Tankhouse’s prior collaborations include 9 Chapel, a highrise in Downtown Brooklyn, and the nearly complete 144 Vanderbilt in Fort Greene. Construction on 450 Union is anticipated to finish in May 2027. At 20 stories, it will become the pair’s largest project to date.
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