Assembling the Puzzle That Is Renaissance Plaza

By John Holusha

It took 15 years, from when the first plans were drawn up in 1983 until tenants started moving in earlier this year, to turn Brooklyn's Renaissance Plaza from a concept into a reality. But now it is there, its front on Adams Street in the borough's downtown district and complete with 820,000 square feet of Class A office space, a 376-room Marriott hotel that began receiving guests in July, and 1,100 underground parking spaces.

"When I had a tenant I didn't have the financing, and when I had the financing I didn't have a tenant," said Joshua Muss of the Muss Development Company, explaining the long struggle to bring the project to fruition.

The city helped by agreeing to lease 12 floors for the offices of the Corporation Counsel and the Brooklyn District Attorney, and the Leucadia National Corporation took the top five floors for its Empire Insurance Group and invested in the project as well. "Leucadia was the final piece of the puzzle," Muss said. "They brought equity, credit and tenancy to the table."

Other tenants include the Securities Industry Automation Corporation and Fleet Bank. In all, about 150,000 square feet of space remain to be leased.

Renaissance Plaza is located in a part of Brooklyn that has seen considerable development in recent years and may see more if rents in Manhattan continue to rise rapidly and drive businesses to seek cheaper alternatives. It is adjacent to Forest City Ratner's Metrotech Center, which has commercial development sites available, and is near Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute, which is rehabilitating its campus.

The city is trying to improve the appearance of the area by building an esplanade down the center of Adams Street that will be planted with grass and trees, and efforts are underway to convert a first floor space of a city government building at 345 Adams -- it now houses courts and other city agencies -- to a bookstore.

"Downtown Brooklyn is the first alternative for people leaving Manhattan," Muss said, adding, "Brooklyn has the transportation and the access to labor." He is involved in commercial and residential development in all of New York City's boroughs except Manhattan.

Although it is a single development, Renaissance Plaza is divided into two parts, a 30-story office tower and a 7-story hotel, which is built around a plaza open to the sky. This unusual configuration was largely the result of changing attitudes during the long incubation period.

Prior to the Muss project, the site was a small park on top of a city-owned parking garage. At first the city insisted on keeping half the garage open, which limited the size of the structure that could be built over it, explained David P. Dann, a principal with William B. Tabler Architects, which designed the structure.

"We figured that by using lightweight steel we could get seven stories," Dann said. By the time the city decided to close the garage, plans for the project had survived a complex, two-year approval process. "If we wanted to change things, we would have had to go through that all over again," he said.

So it went forward with the high-low configuration, substituting cheaper reinforced concrete for the hotel's structure. It opened quietly on July 1 and will have an official opening Nov. 18. The room rates are intended to fall below prices for similar accommodations in Manhattan by $50 to $100 a night. In this slow period of the year, room rates are $179 a night, but are scheduled to rise to $225 in the busier fall.

Hotel executives say that room occupancy so far has been "above expectations," although they decline to say what the expectations were.

The hotel, the first new one to open in the borough in more than 50 years, according to people associated with the project, is appointed in a bold Brooklyn theme. A mural of the Brooklyn Bridge when it was new stretches behind the registration desk and the meeting rooms are named for people associated with Brooklyn, including Jackie Robinson and George Gershwin.

Display cases at the entrance to the restaurant contain memorabilia borrowed from the Brooklyn Historical Society, and paintings of Brooklyn scenes by local artists adorn the walls. "We are celebrating pride in Brooklyn," said Ken Schwartz, the general manager of the hotel.

The facilities include a 75-foot swimming pool, a hot tub and a health club that will be available to hotel guests and have outside memberships as well.

The government legal offices have their own entrance with heavy security, including metal detectors. Robert N. Kaye, the Deputy District Attorney in charge of this part of the project, said the move to Renaissance Plaza consolidates 1,100 lawyers and staff who were previously scattered in six old buildings.

"In the old space, we had to interview clients in open cubicles even if it involved sensitive crimes," he said. In the new quarters, each of the lawyers has a private office.

Some of the floors include playrooms, to encourage victims of domestic violence who rely on child care and parents of children who are crime victims to follow up on initial complaints. "There is a big fall-off in domestic violence cases," Kaye said. "A lot of people report them and then don't show up for subsequent interviews."

Although not every room is equipped with a computer, all the space has been wired to accommodate electronic communications. "There are 16 strands of cable to each work station," Kaye said. "All the space has been prewired."

Since most of Brooklyn consists of low-rise buildings, the views from the top floors of Renaissance Plaza are impressive, particularly those to the west. Lower Manhattan, Governors Island and the Statue of Liberty are in plain sight.

Robert V. Toppi, the president of Empire Insurance, said the firm was building out its space with executive offices toward the interior, leaving the windows unobscured so that everyone can enjoy the views.

He said he hopes the views and other amenities will ease any resentment among employees about being transferred from Manhattan to Brooklyn.

"We think employees will like it here," he said. "A lot of Manhattanites think Brooklyn is far away, but it is really not."