Exactly What Brooklyn Doesn't Need: a LEED Shopping Mall

A few months ago, the city of New York announced it would funnel 20 million Stimulus dollars into the construction of a shopping mall in downtown Brooklyn. It was curious timing given that the city is overrun with empty storefronts available for rent at fire-sale-style prices. It was also curious given the proposed mall's proximity to another big ugly Brooklyn mall, the Atlantic center, which is literally less than a half a mile down the street. (I Googlemapped it.)But the announcement came with promises that City Point would be Brooklyn's first LEED Gold commercial building, and that there would be a park onsite. As if that might obscure the fact that 350,000 square feet of office space piled atop a shopping mall might be the last thing needed in the Albee Square area of downtown Brooklyn.Locals and others are not impressed-and not in a NIMBY way, either. Arguments against City Point are mostly about the use of taxpayer money to fund the construction of a mall, and about the wastefulness of building things we don't need, "green" or not. Writes David Roth from Green Buildings NYC:

City Point looks vaguely Ratner-ian in its unimaginative, ham-fisted re-imagining of a neighborhood that was, for all its downmarket dimensions, at least something unique and organic. It's not easy to get nostalgic for Albee Square Mall, but replacing it with a smaller, more-upscale vertical mall sure makes it easier.

Here is a look at where the mall will go.

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And here is another rendering.

What say you?Via Inhabitat