Caton Flats
Location: Brooklyn, NY
Client: BRP Companies, with Urbane and the Caribbean American Chamber of Commerce and Industry (CACCI)
Type: Mixed-Use & Affordable Housing
Size: 276,288 SF
Units: 255
This mixed-use development completed with design architect Freeform + Deform, is situated on the corner of Caton and Flatbush Avenues. It offers 255 new units of much-needed affordable housing (studio, one-, two- and three-bedrooms), attended parking, office space for a local community organization, retail, and the redeveloped and expanded Flatbush Central Caribbean Marketplace. The market, designed with associated architect Studio 397, provides spaces for vendors selling a variety of goods that celebrate and support the area’s Caribbean-American culture. Additionally, a shared commercial kitchen and design studio will focus on opportunities for BIPOC entrepreneurs.
The team is pursing LEED v4 NC (Silver) and Energy Star certification and Enterprise Green Communities for the development. The modeled Site EUI is 25.234 kBtu/yr/sf and modeled Source EUI is 56.182 kBtu/yr/sf. The building has continuous insulation at roofs and facade, high performing aluminum windows, hydronic PTACS, an energy efficient gas fired boiler for domestic hot water and a "micro-cogen" which generates heat and electricity in a single system.
An attended residential lobby with limestone-lined entrance and “living greenwall” welcomes residents, and apartments balance affordable housing standards and durable, economic materials, with contemporary design and elegant finishes. Large windows fill homes with natural light and views, but few compete with the vista from the communal roof terrace at the 13th floor overlooking Prospect Park and lower Manhattan. Other resident amenities include a 13th floor lounge and a gym on the 2nd floor with adjacent rear yard terrace.
Photos by Alexander Severin, Ari Burling.