Park Edge is a 12-story affordable housing project at 542 Dean Street, Brooklyn, currently in design. Won through a competitive RFP for Housing Preservation and Development (HPD), and led by a development team comprised of Jobe Development, MEGA, and Institute for Community Living (ICL), the project will provide disadvantaged seniors with 164 studio and one-bedroom apartments, shared spaces, a garden at ground level, and supportive services managed by ICL. The project will also include a community facility with programming to benefit the neighborhood.

Designed to front both Dean Street and the adjacent Dean Playground, the building angles gently away from the street, resulting in an increasingly wider sidewalk and resultant transparency as one approaches the ballfield. Addressing a rare urban condition, the façade wraps around to face the mid-block ballfield, enhancing this public space with another “front” façade. A new privately operated public space (POPS) on the property will extend the capacity of this vital recreational space managed by the New York City Department of Parks & Recreation and serve as part of a new public through-block paseo connecting Dean Street to Bergen Street. The design of the building and its landscaping will therefore improve interconnectivity within the neighborhood, while intertwining public life with the lives of the seniors living in the building.

In a contemporary reinterpretation of local brownstones and early 20th century rowhouses, the building’s brick façade is comprised of bay windows that meet the ground without mediation. The result on the exterior creates an undulating effect across the façade while providing views of the park from the interiors of the units. The ground floor spaces and amenities span between street and residents’ rear garden, creating a luminous interior connected to nature.

The building will be designed as an Ultra Low Energy Building (ULEB), with geothermal heating and cooling and PV panels on the roof.

Client: New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development, Jobe Development Corporation, Mega Group Development, Institute for Community Living (Development Team)

Status: Schematic Design

Size: 113,000 GSF (approx.)

Program: Affordable senior housing, residential amenities, and community facilities

Environmental: Ultra Low Energy Building (ULEB), geothermal, PV panels

Design Team: Eric Bunge, Mimi Hoang | David Chessrown | Jason Kim | Grey Peterson | Fatemeh Shirpour | RFP Phase: Isabel Sarasa | Suemin Jeon | Adina Bauman

Collaborators: Landscape: Terrain-NYC | Structure: DeSimone Consulting Engineers | MEP: Altera Engineering | Sustainability: Bright Power

Renderings: GRAPH Visual Studio