A Recipe for Getting Armory Reuse Projects Right

Just a block and a half away from where I live in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, is the Bedford Union Armory, which for a few years now has been sitting largely unused. Turned over by the state to the City of New York in 2013, this massive, 110-year-old former National Guard facility appears from the outside to be headed toward quiet dereliction, but in fact, it’s now the epicenter of a major development fight in one of the most rapidly gentrifying neighborhoods in New York City. Like hundreds of other armories around the country, finding the right kind of re-use for the site—plus the money, will, and community support to move forward—is proving challenging.

The current plan for this particular armory involves a private developer retrofitting the space to include a recreation center, a community complex, a mix of non-profit and commercial rental space, and housing. On the surface, this seems like a reasonable re-purposing of the 138,000-square-foot site, ensuring the kind of diverse uses and income streams necessary to convert and maintain the enormous structure. But the project is being pitched to the community as a trade off: you only get the community and recreation centers if we also build luxury housing. While 20 percent of the condos and 50 percent of the rental units in the current proposal are classified as affordable, their designation has come under scrutiny given the actual incomes of area residents. Add to that questions about whether the site will employ union workers and concerns about who will afford to make use of the recreation and community centers, and you’ve got a prescription for a fight over this project.