In DUMBO a Parking Lot Will Become a Piazza

The Department of Transportation has unveiled plans to turn the gritty Pearl Street Triangle in DUMBO into a public plaza. The plaza will be similar to the one DOT creaed on Willoughby Street in Downtown Brooklyn last year. The Triangle currently serves as a parking lot.

Some interesting notes about the project: The plaza plan grew out of a study done by graduate students from Pratt Institute. The very same Community Board committee that nearly voted down the Willoughby plaza project unanimously approved this one. And, as with the Willoughby Plaza, once built, the Pearl Street space will be maintained by the local Business Improvement District.

The Courier-Life newspaper reports:

The DOT’s Downtown Brooklyn Transportation Coordinator Christopher Hrones unveiled the plan to unanimous approval before last week’s Community Board 2 Transportation and Public Safety Committee. Under the plan, the DOT will pay for the installation of granite blocks for pedestrians to sit as well as reddish-colored planters and green colored tables and chairs at the triangle.

Hrones said the installation will start in June and it will be reviewed in the fall to see if it should become permanent. The plan is similar to the Willoughby Pedestrian Plaza recently installed in Downtown Brooklyn in that the local Business Improvement District (BID) will maintain it, said Hrones.

In the case of the Pearl Street Triangle Plaza, the maintenance will fall on the DUMBO BID, which has been advocating for the pedestrian plaza for several months.

“We’re very excited about it. It grew out of a study that a group of graduate students from Pratt Institute did here last fall,” said DUMBO BID Executive Director Tucker Reed. “We invited them down to look at underutilized spaces down here. We picked it up and ran with it and it was implementable. We’re very happy the community board and DOT both agree,” he added.