Before his girlfriend dissed him for “a friend” the Diabolical Biz Markie’s “house was Albee Square Mall.” For that matter, Albee Square Mall was home for many who grew up in Brooklyn during the 1980s. Once the staple of Downtown Brooklyn, the mall was demolished early 2008 to make way for the new 1.5 million-square-foot City Point development. After a lengthy delay, development on the first stage of the project is slated to begin late summer/early fall of this year. The first building will be the City Point building at One DeKalb Avenue (the old Albee Square Mall main entrance).

In their request for a supporting recommendation from the Community Board 2 (CB2) Land Use Committee, Paul Travis of City Point Joint Venture, and Tom Montvel-Cohen of Constructive Strategies presented the new design for the space at last night’s meeting. The first stage will include One DeKalb which will be a four story (with a level below ground) 50,000 square-foot mixed-use retail space. The interim plan for the remainder of the 30,000 square-feet area is to use shipping containers to transform the north side (Flatbush Ave. and Willoughby St.) into a retail space for small businesses.  Mr. Travis said the entire space will be developed into approximately 1.5 million-square-feet of retail space, office space and housing when the economy recovers.

See more design photos in slideshow here. 

In other news, the committee supported the following applications:

• The installation of a large window at the north side of the rear façade and a rooftop bulkhead at 437 Waverly Avenue.
• Modifying the storefront at 133 Lafayette Avenue in order to restore it to the previous historic look.
• For the police department to install four in-ground-vehicle-barriers and security kiosks at 11 Metrotech Center which houses the NYPD main dispatch system. This will replace four police cars stationed at the building’s entrances since 9/11.