Square Feet: Buried Garage to Help Pay for New Park in Brooklyn

Perhaps that’s too whimsical a description for an urban park and a garage below.

But the image loosely fits a new deal to construct Willoughby Square, the long-awaited public space that New York City officials consider Brooklyn’s answer to Bryant Park in Midtown Manhattan. An entirely invisible world underneath the park — in the form of a high-tech, mammoth underground garage — will in part finance creation of the aboveground square, an agreement negotiated by the city that resurrects a cornerstone of the extensive plans for rezoning the borough’s downtown.

The square will span more than an acre on Willoughby Street, a half-block from the Fulton Street mall, with manicured lawns, walkways and gardens, as well as a site to commemorate the abolitionist movement. Below it, the garage will house about 700 cars at any given time, relying on a system of computers rather than garage attendants. It will be the largest automated parking facility in North America.

“This will be a marquee public space,” said Tucker Reed, the president of the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership, a nonprofit local development corporation that will oversee the park’s maintenance. “From the waterfront to the Barclays Center is the core of the 21st century downtown, and to have a public amenity like this right in the middle ties everything together.”

The square has been in the works for nearly a decade, one piece of the 2004 rezoning of downtown Brooklyn. In that time, the city has spent about $40 million on the project for land acquisition and design work and to relocate families and businesses. But Willoughby Square faltered during the economic downturn, with funding cuts and an inability to find a developer.

After renewing efforts three years ago, the city has finally struck a deal with the Willoughby Operating Company for the joint park and garage project. The Willoughby Operating Company, an affiliate of the American Development Group, will lease the city-owned land. It will use $6 million from city capital, the city’s Economic Development Corporation and private contributions from surrounding developers to construct the park.

The Willoughby Operating Company has also agreed to pay for any cost overruns and to finance the excavation and development of the garage. It hired Automotion Parking Systems, which has a principal in common with the American Development Group, to build and run the garage.

“The Willoughby Square project is a critical piece of the Bloomberg administration’s ongoing plan to revitalize Downtown Brooklyn — an effort that has been making progress since 2004,” Seth W. Pinsky, president of the city’s Economic Development Corporation, said in a statement. “Despite financing challenges associated with the economic downturn of 2008, the administration has remained steadfast in its commitment to the project, working collaboratively with all stakeholders to ensure it became a reality.”

The city hopes to begin preparing the site this summer, with demolition to follow. As part of that effort, the city’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development is working to relocate the handful of residents who remain in the area. Forty of the 49 families have been moved, and two additional households are relocating to housing run by the New York City Housing Authority, according to the city. Other properties at the site include three vacant commercial buildings and some parking garages that are on city leases.

The city hopes to open the park in 2016.

The technology for the automated garage is critical in getting the project built, said Ari Milstein, the director of planning for Automotion. The excavation is costly and complex; several buildings need to be protected, and the subways run just four feet from the property line. But Automotion uses limited ramps and driving lanes, significantly reducing the space that must be excavated, the company says. In addition, the machinery that racks its cars can pack more vehicles into a smaller space than a traditional underground lot, increasing efficiency.