Brooklyn, NY Two Trees Management opened The Refinery at Domino, an 11-acre Domino Sugar Factory site. The class A building on the waterfront has been transformed into a 15-story, 460,000 s/f class A office space. As the second commercial building at Domino, behind the fully leased Ten Grand St. next door, The Refinery is the newest building in the city catering to top companies seeking to offer an experience for its employees.
The class A office building features floor-to-ceiling windows and up to 33,000 s/f floor plates. Tenants will have access to on-site amenities including the 27,000 s/f glass dome penthouse with 360-degree views that accommodates a variety of uses, including communal workspaces, private club and event space.
The triple-height atrium lobby features full-service concierge and security. The building houses 60,000 total s/f of retail space, including a retail fitness club with an indoor pool and full-service gym. Tenants can utilize a dedicated bicycle lobby with a separate entrance, ramp and secure bike parking. In addition to Domino’s existing popular food and beverage options including Tacocina and Misi by Missy Robbins, The Refinery will bring exciting food and beverage shops to the ground floor space opening into Domino Park. Adjacent to The Refinery, is the one-acre Domino Square, an outdoor events and programming venue that completes the six-acre Domino Park.
Skylight, the venue development firm behind the country’s most prolific cultural programming, is activating a portion of the penthouse as the newest event space. The first event in The Refinery’s penthouse space was the Hermès Menswear runway show during New York Fashion Week.
An adaptive reuse project, the reimagination of The Refinery has transformed the building from a gas-burning manufacturing plant into one of the most sustainable, environmentally responsible office buildings in New York City. The Refinery at Domino is powered by a mechanical system that utilizes efficient, all-electric equipment, making it one of only a handful of large buildings city-wide to have net-zero carbon emissions. The building is also part of an unprecedented private water reuse system located on the Domino campus; all of the wastewater generated by The Refinery is treated and reused onsite, diverting polluted water from city outfalls, improving the quality of the East River and reducing stress on the city’s burdened infrastructure.
The award-winning Domino Sugar Factory site today is a mixed-use development north of the Williamsburg Bridge. Throughout the long-term planning process, Two Trees has prioritized design and architecture, community input, sustainability and waterfront connectivity. In addition to The Refinery at Domino opening, Two Trees opened Domino Park; two ground up, fully leased residential buildings, One South First and 325 Kent; Ten Grand Street, the first ground up commercial building that launched and fully leased during the pandemic. In 2024, One Domino Square residential building and 1-acre Domino Square community event space will open.
“Over a decade in the making, The Refinery at Domino opens at a time when we are witnessing a significant shift in human capital to Brooklyn,” said Jed Walentas, CEO of Two Trees Management. “Our vision for the Domino site has always been to cultivate a vibrant mixed-use community on the Williamsburg waterfront. The Refinery at Domino is the centerpiece of this vision, delivering the best-in-class commercial space to accommodate Brooklyn’s dynamic workforce.”
The Refinery at Domino is unlike any other commercial building in NYC, combining the history and charm of a landmarked building with all the advantages of new construction. In 2017, Practice for Architecture and Urbanism (design architect) began the design for the adaptive-reuse of The Refinery, creating open architecture that connects the existing neighborhood to the recaptured waterfront a quarter-mile long.
Rather than navigate the misaligned floors and window sills across the combined masonry shell, PAU nestled a brand-new glass building into the existing brick facade, with a 12-foot gap between the new and the old to achieve ideal and standardized floor heights, as well as create a light and airy perimeter that provides building occupants with maximum light and access to the outdoors throughout the day. Inside the 12-foot space between the glass curtain wall and the masonry exterior lives a large-scale green ecosystem consisting of seventeen 30-foot American sweet gum and native pin oak trees as well as lush plantings, introducing a new model of biophilic office design. This vertical garden, which lines the entire perimeter of the building, was designed by landscape architecture firm Field Operations. The Refinery’s interior designer is Bonetti/Kozerski and executive architect is dencityworks.
The old Havemeyer building contains a chimney over 214 feet tall and features different styles and sizes of windows that will remain open. The sugar manufacturing machinery that was housed inside the building has been repurposed, being placed throughout Domino Park as historical relics. An energy efficient LED replica of the iconic “Domino Sugar” neon sign adorns the top of the building matching the original dimensions.
“The transformation of The Refinery entailed three major design moves—inserting a contemporary building in the sleeve of the historic structure similar the machinery it once housed; creating a glass barrel vault form that pays homage to the American Round Arch style of the original; and opening the ground floor to the park and the surrounding Williamsburg neighborhood.” said Vishaan Chakrabarti, founder and creative director of PAU. “This approach has created an iconic landmark for the 21st century, offering users natural light, greenery, waterfront views, and a contemporary dialogue with history that most new commercial projects lack. Although conceived before the pandemic, The Refinery represents a future of work that offers a unique rootedness in place and community that is invaluable going forward.”
Constructed in 1884, the Domino Sugar Refinery was once the largest sugar manufacturing producer in the world. After 120 years in operation, the Refinery closed in 2004, prompting the New York Landmarks Preservation Commission to name the filter, pan, and finishing house of the Refinery a landmark site in 2007. Two Trees Management purchased the site in October 2012 and began executing its plan to revitalize the site while still embracing the architecture of the original structures. Before beginning their work, Two Trees commissioned artist Kara Walker in 2014 to create a giant sphinx sculpted out of white sugar, called “A Subtlety, or the Marvelous Sugar Baby,” to commemorate the original purpose of the building and spread awareness for the role of Black labor in sugar production throughout the U.S.
Sign up is quick, easy, & FREE.
