Downtown Brooklyn (DTB) is NYC’s third largest central business district. It is ideally situated near Lower Manhattan and is the perfect location for the expansion needs of companies located there, particularly those interested in reducing their occupancy costs.

DTB is best known for MetroTech Center, a $1 billion, 16-acre commercial, academic and high-technology complex with 12 commercial buildings totaling more than five million SF of office and retail space. In fact, the CBD extends as far north as DUMBO on the East River and as far south as the Atlantic Yards on Flatbush Avenue.

An Extension of Lower Manhattan
In large part because of its proximity to Lower Manhattan, Downtown Brooklyn has long been a popular location for financial services and insurance firms looking to expand and diversify.

Established companies like the Bank of New York, Bear Stearns, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase and New York Life Insurance are just a few of the myriad firms that have already discovered the area. These firms are joined by a new crop of value seekers including Northrop Grumman, West Elm, Morton's Steakhouse, and Trader Joes among others.

Education in Downtown Brooklyn
DTB is also recognized as a prominent educational center. More than 35,000 students attend classes at the 16 academic institutions that have made the area home.  They include Brooklyn Law School, Long Island University and Polytechnic University, to name a few.

Arts & Media in Downtown Brooklyn 
DTB is home to the Brooklyn Museum, the Brooklyn Botanical Garden and the New York City Transit Museum.  Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) is often considered the centerpiece Downtown Brooklyn's designated cultural district.

$100 million will be invested in the BAM Cultural District to build new venues where arts and cultural organizations can create and present their work.  Notable groundbreakings planned for 2008 include the 35,000 SF, 300-seat, Frank Gehry designed Theatre for a New Audience and Borough Gardens, a 30-story tower that will include 40,000 SF cltural center anchored by Danspace Project and 190 units of mixed income housing.  Both developments are expected to be completed in early 2010.

Residential Development
DTB offers a variety of both historic and modern residential options. Historically, the area has been a civic and commercial center without an abundance of housing. In recent years, DTB has attracted a great deal of residential development including condo conversions, new apartment complexes and co-ops. Over 14,000 units of housing are slated for future development.

The rise in residential options has transformed the area into a 24/7 hub of mixed-use activity. In fact, a large portion of DTB’s population lives and works in the area.

Just 5-10 minutes from Lower Manhattan, DTB has one of the City’s most extensive transit hubs.  Every year more than 30 million passengers pass through Atlantic Terminal station alone. 

The area is easily accessible by many forms of transit:

• 14 subway lines: A, C, B, D, F, G, 2, 3, 4, 5, N, Q, R, W
• 16 bus lines, including: B45, B51, B54, B57, B61, and B75 
• Long Island Railroad at Atlantic Avenue/Pacific Street Station
• Ferry access to Manhattan, Queens and Staten Island
• Convenient access to major highways, tunnels and bridges, including the BQE, the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel, and the Brooklyn and Manhattan bridges

Downtown Brooklyn is the third largest business district in New York City and boasts over 17 million square feet of office space. The 16-acre, $1 billion MetroTech Center is Brooklyn’s largest office development. MetroTech is comprised of 12 buildings and five million square feet of office and retail space. 

• Average Asking Rents
  According to Cushman & Wakefield, Inc., average office space asking rents for the first quarter overall in the Downtown Brooklyn market are $31.44 per square foot, with Class A office rates at $33.30 per square foot.
• Vacancy Rates
  Vacancy rates for Downtown Brooklyn ended the fourth quarter at 9.4 percent. There is currently 1.6 million SF of available office space, and more than 980,000 SF of it is Class A.

There are several buildings with significant amounts of space available:

• Direct Lease
• One Pierrepont Plaza with 37,500 SF on the 15th floor
• 1 MetroTech Center with 85,000 SF on floors 10 & 11
• 4 MetroTech Center with 180,000 SF on floors 12 - 18
• Sublease
• 2 MetroTech Center with 134,000 SF on floors 2 - 5 (sublease from SAIC)
• 10 MetroTech Center with 123,000 SF on floors 2 - 7 (sublease from GSA)   

Recently leased space in Downtown Brooklyn include:

• AIG
  Lease for 110,000 SF at 12 MetroTech
• Amy Ruth's
  Lease for 7,000 SF at 372 Fulton Street
• Legal Services for New York City
  Lease for 9,669 SF at 177 Livingston Street
• Morton's Steakhouse
  Lease for 14,500 SF at the Marriott (333 Adams Street)
• Ms Foundation
  Lease for 15,000 SF at 12 MetroTech
• Visiting Nurse Service
  Lease for 70,000 SF at 15 MetroTech Center
• Surround Art
  Lease for 89,000 SF at the Brooklyn Navy Yard
• Trader Joe's
  Lease of the former Independence Savings Bank Building
• Treeline Companies
  Conversion of former Macy's Warehouse into 110,000 SF of Class A Office Space

More than $300 million in City funds has been secured for several important projects aimed at providing a better setting for new development while improving the overall pedestrian experience in the Downtown Brooklyn area. 

Neighborhood Revitalization
Design is underway for streetscape improvements along the area’s key corridors: Flatbush Avenue, Fulton Mall and Boerum Place. Improvements will include sidewalk rehabilitation, walkways, new street lighting, bus shelters and planted medians.  The Flatbush and Fulton projects are expected to break ground in the third quarter of 2008 and the Boerum Place project is slated for completion in summer of 2008. 

Construction has begun at Brooklyn Bridge Park where pedestrians will enjoy 76 acres of lawns, recreation fields, water access, esplanades and playgrounds.  A creative reclamation of Brooklyn's waterfront on publicly-held land and piers, the park will ring downtown, stretching from Dumbo to the end of Atlantic Avenue.

In addition, a Ken Smith designed, 30,000 SF Grand Plaza bounded by Flatbush, Lafayette, and Ashland Avenues will provide a major outdoor gathering space and provide an entrance to the BAM Cultural District.

Strengthening Downtown Brooklyn
Many resources are in place to encourage the continual growth of Downtown  Brooklyn as a vibrant business center, retail destination and world-class cultural hub.

The Downtown Brooklyn Partnership (DBP) continues to strengthen the development of Downtown Brooklyn as the City’s third largest central business district by attracting investment in the area.

A new business improvement district (BID), the Court-Livingston-Schermerhorn BID, was established in late 2006 to provide additional sanitation, public safety, landscaping and marketing services to businesses in the area.

The Downtown Brooklyn Development Plan is designed to stimulate the area and is expected to bring over $10 billion in development to the area. This initiative incorporates over three million square feet of office and retail space, 14,300 new housing units, and over 8 acres of public open space.

Reflecting Downtown Brooklyn's status as a bustling commercial district, college town, burgeoning residential community and tourist attraction, more than 2,500 hotel rooms are planned for development, including limited service providers, suite, boutique, and five-star hotels.

Commercial Office Projects
Several sites within Downtown Brooklyn are ready or nearly assembled for development:

• City Point
  An $800 million, 1.62 million SF mixed-use project to be developed on Willoughby Street between Albee Square West and Flatbush Avenue by Acadia Realty Trust, MacFarlane Partners, P/A Associates and Paul Travis LLC. The project will include approximately 900,000 SF of housing, 520,000 SF of retail space and 300,000 SF of Class A office space. It is expected to break ground in late 2008.
• Atlantic Yards Site
  Forest City Ratner Companies is developing an eight million square foot mixed-use project designed by architect Frank Gehry. The $4.2 billion project will include an 850,000 SF professional sports and entertainment arena and 16 mixed-use high rise buildings. The project will create over 500,000 SF of commercial space, 247,000 SF of retail space, 6,430 housing units, a 180-room hotel and eight acres of open space. Final approval was received from the Public Authorities Control Board (PACB) in December 2006 and demolition is currently underway.
• Boerum Place Site
  Potential 848,000 SF mixed-use building at Boerum Place between Livingston and Fulton Streets.
• Willoughby South Site
  Opportunity to develop up to one million square feet on Willoughby Street between Duffield Street and Albee Square West.
• Willoughby West Site
  160,000 SF of development consisting of two hotels, a Sheraton Hotel with 320 rooms and a W Aloft Hotel with 180 rooms, both developed by The Lam Group. Construction is underway with completion targeted for 2011. Adjacent to the hotels is a 594,000SF residential project along Willoughby Street being developed by United American Land.

Residential & Hotel Projects 
Reflecting Brooklyn's status as a bustling commercial business district, burgeoning resdiential community, and tourist attraction, more than 10 residential developments and more than 2,500 hotel rooms are planned or currently under construction in the area.  Notable developments include:

• BellTel Lofts – a 248-unit condominium development with retail space;
• Hotel Indigo - a 165-room hotel at 237 Duffield Street.  Project is being completed by V3 Development;
• Oro Condominiums - 300 residential units in a centrally located tower;
• Hyatt Place - a 180-room hotel at 37 Nevins Street; and
• 110 Livingston – Developed by BFC Partners and designed by Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill, the tower will provide 280 market-rate and affordable condominium units

New York City and New York State make it worth your while to move to Downtown Brooklyn and grow a business here. A number of City and State incentives are helping attract tenants to Downtown Brooklyn. Business income tax credits, rent reductions, real estate tax savings and energy discounts are just some of the benefits available to businesses in the area.

The estimated savings from the following as-of-right programs can total $15 per SF or more per year. (See table below for sample benefits calculation.)

Relocation and Employment Assistance Program (REAP)

• Annual credit against City business tax of up to $3,000 per employee for companies that relocate from outside NYC or from Manhattan below 96th Street
• Benefits are available for up to 12 years, refundable for first five
• Benefits are available for all jobs moved and created over the first five years, up to the greater of 100 and twice the initial number of employees
• Company must have been operating for 24 months before the start of the tax year during which it relocated
• Minimum required investment of $25 per SF on leased space, or the building must be improved by 50 percent of its appraised value

To apply, download this REAP Application (PDF) maintained by nyc.gov.

Commercial Expansion Program (CEP)
A credit of up to $2.50 per SF per year for five years is available to tenants signing qualifying leases in pre-1999 buildings with at least 25,000 SF of floor area. To be eligible for the program, minimum lease terms and investments are required as indicated below:

• Minimum lease term must be (a) three years if 125 people or fewer will be employed in the premises; or (b) 10 years if more than 125 people will be employed in the premises
• Minimum investment level must be at least (a) $2.50 per SF for leases of less than 10 years and for renewal leases of 10 years or more that include newly leased space; (b) $5.00 per SF for renewal leases of 10 years or more involving only previously occupied space; and (c) $25.00 per SF for new and expansion leases of 10 years or more

To apply, download this CEP Application (PDF) maintained by nyc.gov.

Industrial and Commercial Incentive Program (ICIP)

• Partial exemption from increases in real property tax that would otherwise result from construction or renovation of commercial buildings
• Minimum expenditures required
• Benefits depend on location of property

To apply, download the ICIP Application (PDF) maintained by nyc.gov.

Energy Cost Savings Program (ECSP)

• 12-year program providing discounts of up to 45 percent on delivery portion of electric and gas bills
• To qualify, building must be receiving ICIP benefits or be leased from the NYCIDA, City of New York or certain other public agencies

To apply, download the ECSP Application (PDF) maintained by nyc.gov.