For more than 30 years, Schermerhorn Street between Bond and Smith was like the land that time forgot…..”By mid-2010 there will be about 1,000 new residential units in the area,” says Joe Chan, president of the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership. “That will equate to between 2,000 to 2,500 new people.”

Rising with quiet authority from parking lots at the edge of downtown Brooklyn is The Schermerhorn, an 11-story building that proves two things.

First, you don’t need a lot of money to erect handsome, well-designed architecture, even for troubled low-income people.

Project Marks Firsts for Common Ground
Facade of Schemerhorn House
BROOKLYN, N.Y. Scale models of classic cars line the windowsill of a new supportive- housing apartment at Schermerhorn House—a sign that after seven years of planning and construction, residents have finally begun to move in.
The high-rise tower provides permanent housing for 116 formerly homeless individuals living with [...]

The piece “Brooklyn Caprice,” which blends classical ballet with street-style “popping,” inaugurated Brooklyn Ballet’s new home yesterday.

The 2,000-square-foot space is located on the ground floor of a $59 million housing complex for formerly homeless and low- income New Yorkers as well as performing artists. It was developed by nonprofit organizations Common Ground and the Actors Fund of America.

Common Ground, one of the nation’s largest providers of supportive housing and owner and property manager of the Schermerhorn House, today welcomed the Brooklyn Ballet into the Schermerhorn’s storefront space. Today’s 1:00 pm Ribbon-Cutting celebrated the beginning of the Ballet’s tenancy in Common Ground’s first new construction project.

Schermerhorn House, the nine-story, 216-unit residential building that is a joint effort of private developers and non-profit organizations, is readying for full occupancy this month.

Additionally, the building’s street level arts space will soon be home to Brooklyn Ballet. In fact, Brooklyn Ballet will celebrate with a ribbon cutting today at 1 p.m. (please see notice on page one).The arts group will have rehearsal space, performance space, a school and offices.

New York Times: SCHERMERHORN HOUSE, a new residential building in downtown Brooklyn, has a striking two-toned facade of aluminum and glass. Inside, the 217 units all have natural light in the kitchens and cleverly designed storage space. There is a gym with floor-to-ceiling windows and a performance space for arts groups.

Two architects offer far more than lip service to affordable housing.
New York Magazine
By Justin Davidson
Feb 22, 2009
With developers hibernating and sites lying fallow, New York is taking a badly needed break from construction. The pause comes with a lot of pain, but there is an upside to the downturn. Architects who had been outdoing [...]

Applications for Schermerhorn House are not currently available.
Requests to be on the wait list for an application can be made by mail. Send all requests with return address to :
Common Ground Community
Central Intake Unit
255 West 43rd Street
New York, NY 10036
Attn: Schermerhorn Application Request
For general inquiries about the intake process call: (212) 659-0873.

Common Ground’s nearly completed 12-story residence, will be an important contribution to the revitalization of downtown Brooklyn. It also establishes a standard for green design of affordable housing development in New York City.
Designed by Polshek Partnership Architects, the 217-unit residence features a glass façade and is built on top of the A, C, and G subway lines.

Green Design is Hallmark of New Supportive Housing Project
December 13, 2007 (Brooklyn, NY) – Common Ground and The Actors Fund announce the topping out of Schermerhorn House, an eleven -story, 97,000-sq. ft. “supportive housing” building designed by Polshek Partnership Architects. Partners Susan T. Rodriguez and Timothy P. Hartung led the Polshek Partnership team. The [...]

Once construction is complete, Schermerhorn’s glass façade will provide light inside, while beautifying the neighborhood.
In the Boerum Hill section of Brooklyn, a new Common Ground building will soon provide a home for low-income performing artists and entertainment professionals, and formerly homeless individuals living with HIV/AIDS. A collaboration with the Actors Fund, Schermerhorn House will help [...]

“Common Ground…knew good design was vital to winning local support.”
Established and Rising Architects Bring Innovation to Affordability;From: The Wall Street Journal; By BEN CASSELMAN; December 28, 2007; Page W10
Public housing used to mean fortress-like blocks and soulless rows of cheaply built townhouses. But now there’s a new model: privately developed homes and apartments that are [...]

Schermerhorn House under construction in September, 2007. Click here for more photos.
Schermerhorn House, Common Ground’s first ground-up construction project, is steadily rising in downtown Brooklyn.
Situated over two subway tunnels, the building is cantilevered to keep its weight off the tunnels below. To accomplish this, the design incorporates four enormous trusses, or triangular supports. [...]

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) yesterday announced the recipients of the 2007 McKinney-Vento grants, the largest source of funding for supportive housing in New York State. Common Ground has received nearly $6 million of the $126 million earmarked for New York, making this award our largest HUD grant to date! [...]

The Schermerhorn House construction site from the corner of Schermerhorn & Smith streets

Since breaking ground on our latest supportive housing development last May, our contractors have been busy drilling and pouring the caissons that will form the complex foundation of our 217-unit Schermerhorn House. The building site, located on Schermerhorn Street between Hoyt and Smith [...]

Time Equities, Inc. Chairman Francis Greenburger, The Actors’ Fund of America Executive Director Joe Benincasa, Rosanne Haggerty and Hamlin Ventures President Abby Hamlin.
On May 23, 2006, our supporters and the Brooklyn community joined Common Ground and The Actors’ Fund of America at a groundbreaking ceremony for Schermerhorn House, a 217-unit supportive housing development in downtown [...]

©2005 Polshek Partnership Architects LLP. All Rights Reserved.

Thanks to the contributions of corporations, foundations and individuals, as well as the generosity of many others, we were able to meet the Robin Hood Foundation’s challenge and raise $865,682 towards the construction of Schermerhorn House! Special thanks to the Robin Hood Foundation for its challenge grant, [...]

Polshek Partnership Architects has won a Citation in the 2005 American Institute of Architect’s Housing Design Awards for their outstanding work on Schermerhorn House, a supportive housing residence that will be constructed in downtown Brooklyn beginning this winter. This project, which is a unique collaboration between Common Ground and the Actor’s Fund of America, will [...]

For pioneering affordable-housing advocate Rosanne Haggerty, good design is hardly an extravagance. In fact, it pays for itself.
Anna Holtzman
Architecture
“Something very profound seems to happen to people when they live in a building that’s historic and beautiful,” says Rosanne Haggerty, founder and president of Common Ground Community, a New York City-based nonprofit housing and community development [...]

Michael Brick
New York Times
So this may come as perverse consolation, but slowly, quietly and over the course of decades, the borough has created something - or, rather, a conspicuous nothing - that elevates it among the ranks of the country’s real, independent big cities.
At the borough’s heart, framed by the waterfront to the west, the [...]