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BROOKLYN WEEKLY, SEPTEMBER 1, 2019
The walkway comes as part of a facelift of the former Jehovah’s Witnesses’s Brooklyn Heights headquarters, which will feature some 635,000 square feet of offi ce space across fi ve buildings. Max Touhey
BY KEVIN DUGGAN
A twice-shuttered, multimillion
dollar bridge that’s
proven Brooklyn Bridge
Park’s biggest boondoggle
could become redundant following
the redevelopment
of a former Jehovah’s Witness
complex in Brooklyn
Heights.
A developer’s scheme to
revamp the Jehovah’s Witnesses’
Watchtower complex
may include an open pathway
connecting Columbia
Heights and Furman Street
when it opens this fall, which
would save people from the
long walk to Doughty Street
needed to reach Brooklyn
Bridge Park, and perform
the same function that
Squibb Bridge was designed
for until it closed — for the
second time.
The high-concept, $4 million,
Ted Zoli-designed span
debuted in 2013 , only to close
the following year due to
what attorneys for Brooklyn
Bridge Park described as
an “inherently fl awed” design
that became “unstable”
and “deformed” in a lawsuit
against engineering fi rm
HNTB, who park operators
sued to recoup the bridge’s
roughly $3 million repair
tab.
The bridge reopened
in April 2017, only to shutter
once again the following
year, after park leaders
discovered that wood
planks used in its construction
were decaying due to
“higher than expected moisture
levels.”
Now, Brooklyn Bridge
Park wants to scrap the old
bridge and replace it with
a second, $6.5 million span
that won’t open until summer
2020 — a year after the
new Watchtower development
is complete.
Multiple requests for
comment to Brooklyn
Bridge Park Corporation
went unanswered.
The Jehovah’s Witness
complex was made inaccessible
to the public by design,
according to one of the architects
in charge of the revamp,
who said that he and
his team want to open the
group of buildings back up
to the community.
“It was really a very inward
facing, kind of an introverted
big thing that was
more of a barrier to the waterfront
than a connector
to the neighborhood,” said
Robert Fuller, an architect
with Manhattan design fi rm
Gensler.
The walkway would connect
Brooklyn Heights to
Dumbo and Brooklyn Bridge
Park much the same way
the shuttered Squibb Bridge
was supposed to, which runs
from Squibb Park at Columbia
Heights, over Furman
Street, to Brooklyn Bridge
Park in front of 1 Hotel
Brooklyn Bridge.
However, it remains up
to developers Livwrk and
CIM Group, as well as potential
tenants whether
they want to fully extend an
existing pathway leading
from Furman Street into
the complex all the way to
Columbia Heights, according
to a spokesman Brandon
Levesque, who noted
that the connector remains
a design proposal by the architects.
The Watchtower connector
would come as one part
of a large-scale renovation
of the fi ve interconnected
buildings that used to house
the religious group’s Brooklyn
headquarters until they
sold it for $340 million to
development fi rms Livwrk,
CIM Group, and President
Trump’s son-in-law Jared
Kushner, the latter of whom
divested himself from the
project in 2018.
The sale also included
a nearby former Jehovah’s
Witnesses parking lot for
an additional $345 million,
which the developers are
turning into a 21-story twotower
condo complex with
an expansive gated garden
at Front and York streets.
The new mixed-use complex
will include 635,000
square feet of offi ce space
— about 11 football fi elds —
along with 17 terraces and
balconies with expansive
views of the Brooklyn waterfront
and the distant isle
of Manhattan.
Additionally, about
35,000 square feet of groundfl
oor space will be set aside
for retail, with another
15,000 square feet reserved
for hotel space at 58 Columbia
Heights, according to
Carroll.
The fate of one of the
building’s most recognizable
features, the iconic “Watchtower”
sign atop 30 Columbia
Heights still hangs in the
balance.
Workers tore down the
original sign in late 2017
and the developers have yet
to decide what they will replace
it with, or whether
they plan to keep the stillstanding
temperature and
time reader on top of it.
“This is still a work in
progress. Once we have
something defi nitive regarding
the sign, we will
share that with the public,”
said Levesque.
The city ruled in November
2018 the owners can put
their own branding on the
sign and a rendering on
the project’s website shows
“Panorama” in red lettering
with the clock still intact.
The three brick and timber
buildings at 50 and 58
Columbia Heights, and 55
Furman Street date back to
the 1870s.
Pharmaceutical company
Squibb Pharmaceutical
erected 25 and 30 Columbia
Heights in the 1920s and
occupied those spaces until
the Jehovah’s Witnesses
moved in 1969 and expanded
the buildings several times
until they sold them to the
cadre of developers ahead of
a move upstate in 2016.
BRIDGING THE GAP
Witness HQ revamp could make boondoggle bridge redundant