Overview
The tallest building in Downtown Brooklyn: Clad in glass and bronze, a cinematic expression of the rich past and future of the borough.
- Phase:
Construction
- Property Type:
Multi-family residential with a retail base
- Year Built:
1929 (Bank), 2022 (Tower)
- Square Footage:
+/- 762,000 GSF
- Height:
1,073 ft
- Exterior Material:
Stainless Steel, Aluminum, Glass, Marble
Brooding, elegant, and badass.
From the site of the landmarked Dime Savings Bank of Brooklyn, 9 Dekalb is rising in Downtown Brooklyn. With its hexagonal design and rich materiality of bronze and glass, repeating and resembling features of the historic site, this cinematic tower will soar over 1,000 feet high, becoming the tallest tower in Brooklyn.
History
The Bank of the People
A New York City landmark where you could open a bank account for a dime.
1908
1930
1932
2019
2020
Design
Deriving a site grid from Bank Geometry
This design is interesting, exciting and respectful in the way that it tips its hat to the primacy of the landmark.
9 DeKalb encompasses a triangular lot facing Albee Square and is bound by DeKalb Avenue, Flatbush Avenue Extension, and Fleet Street—Brooklyn’s most important commercial thoroughfare.
Another JDS and SHoP collaboration, 9 Dekalb presented the challenge of a combination tower and landmark. Rather than build an as of right tower directly behind the landmarked site—blocking views of the sky from Albee Square and reducing the landmark’s exposure—a more interesting and elegant design was proposed that combined the two buildings and allowed for the interlocking, hexagonal tower, while preserving the decorative street façade of the bank.
Drawing from the patterns and floor plate of the Dime Savings Bank, SHoP designed the tower massing as hexagonal volumes, extruded to different heights to create terraced setbacks.
9 Dekalb embraces a respect for the expressive potential of traditional architectural materials as well as propels pioneering technology forward to create a dialogue between past, present, and future.
Site grid is two interlocking hexagons referring directly to the geometry of the bank floor plan and design
Façade
The tower façade is designed to complement the landmark’s façade design and materiality. The tower façade repeats patterns of vertical columns and uses a similar material and color palette. The tower consists of alternating panels of glazing and arrays of vertical architectural profiles made of colored metals in black, copper and gold. The shapes alternate in size as the climb up or down each of the six tower faces, creating a fade from bronze to black as the tower reaches into the sky.
Facade panel installation at 9 DeKalb
Visual Mockup of the 9 DeKalb facade
Team
- Developer:
- Construction Manager:
- Original Architect:
Mowbray & Uffinger
- Modification Architect:
Halsey, McCormack & Helmer (1931)
- Tower Architect:
- Preservation Architect:
Jan Hird Pokorny Associates (JHPA)
- Landscape Designer:
HMWhite
- Structural Engineer:
- Mechanical Engineer:
