St. Ann’s Warehouse at Tobacco Warehouse

n 2010, the Brooklyn Bridge Park Corporation (BBPC) offered an enterprising community organization the opportunity to create a cultural facility as anchor to the east end of the burgeoning waterfront park. BBPC issued an RFP for the development and adaptive reuse of the landmark Tobacco Warehouse, located in the park and the Empire Fulton Ferry historic district of DUMBO, Brooklyn. A roofless, brick shell, the 1870s building is a beloved community symbol and reminder of New York's 19th-century working waterfront.

Neighboring St. Ann’s Warehouse, a critically-acclaimed performing arts presenter and DUMBO fixture for over a decade, jumped at the chance to establish a permanent home while remaining in the same area. (The Tobacco Warehouse is situated diagonally across the street from the theater’s current leased location.)

St. Ann’s hired ABCC to guide the process that brought together its board, staff and technical consultants to conceptualize a vision for the sensitive rehabilitation of the historic structure. The proposed "building within a building" plan, as conceived by the New York firm H3 Hardy Collaboration Architecture, with assistance from London-based theater consultants Charcoalblue, imagines a 21st-century performing arts facility and community center that is respectful of the landmark's past and fully integrated within its contemporary urban environment. The plan incorporates an enclosed triangle garden that serves as a gateway to the new theater and the park.

We codified this expansive vision into a 200-page proposal responding to the RFP. Subsequently, St. Ann’s was designated as the primary tenant and developer of the landmark building as a new cultural center. And H3 won the American Institute of Architects New York State Design Award Citation for its adaptive reuse design.