STUDIO V, in close collaboration with state transportation authorities, city officials, and private developers, has developed Brooklyn Yards, creating strategies to reclaim an unutilized expanse of land above an exposed rail passage for residential and commercial development in the Borough Park neighborhood of Brooklyn.

This project will serve as a proof of concept for further development for land above the exposed Bay Ridge rail line, which travels from Southern Brooklyn through Queens and into The Bronx. In replicating Brooklyn Yards along this and other rail lines, the city will be able to simultaneously create new light rail transit infrastructure while repairing communities that have been severed by large-scale infrastructure.

When complete, the project will provide the Borough Park community with 267 residences, 80 of them being affordable housing. With future city implementation of this design, it could result in over 4,000 new residential units. It was essential for the project to ensure that family-size apartments of 3 and 4 bedrooms were included in the affordable units, as well as additional commercial space at one end of the site for local independent businesses. A linear “green alley” network of pedestrian green spaces defined by distinctive arched openings through the buildings also provides enhanced connectivity within the project and connections into the surrounding neighborhood.