Alloy Development has unveiled plans for One Third Avenue, a 63-story skyscraper that will be the second phase of the Alloy Block complex in Downtown Brooklyn. The building will stand 725 feet tall and become the world’s tallest Passive House-engineered building. One Third Avenue will feature 583 market-rate and affordable housing units, retail spaces, and commercial office spaces.
The building’s design includes a grid of oversized operable windows that are 6 feet wide by 7.5 feet tall, maximizing views and natural light. The passive house standards will contribute to energy efficiency with an airtight building envelope and filtered fresh air. The skyscraper’s exterior will have a sculptural design with black paneling between floor-to-ceiling windows.
The building’s podium will align with the heights of surrounding structures and feature angled charcoal fins and floor-to-ceiling glass, along with a landscaped roof deck. The interior design will emphasize an exposed concrete aesthetic.
Sustainable design of One Third Avenue
Residents will access the building through a lobby in an existing historic building on State Street, while the commercial entrance will be located on Schermerhorn Street. Retail spaces will line Third Avenue between historic and contemporary buildings. The podium will house six floors of office space, each with 11,300 square feet of leasable area.
Floors 11 through 60 will be dedicated to residential units, with 152 of the 583 units earmarked for affordable housing. As part of the second phase, two historic buildings from the 1800s on State and Schermerhorn Streets will be adaptively reused to include ground-floor retail spaces for the community. Alloy CEO Jared Della Valle said, “One Third Avenue will raise the bar for sustainable urban development.
Developing a Passive House building at this scale will be incredibly challenging, but the payoff will be significant with high-quality living that remains environmentally friendly and energy-efficient.”
Once completed, the Alloy Block is projected to be the most sustainable block in Brooklyn, featuring over 1,000 residences (about 200 of them permanently affordable), 60,000 square feet of Class A office space, 50,000 square feet of retail space, and two state-of-the-art Passive House public schools. A construction timeline for One Third Avenue has yet to be announced.