A luxury residential building moving to completion in Brooklyn, N.Y. has a unique mission: creating a medically equipped structure that also is amenity-rich and features high-end design for older New York City adults. The project team on the $330-million Watermark in the Brooklyn Heights neighborhood aims to succeed by transforming 21 Clark St.—an historic hotel that spent the last several decades as office and dormitory space—into an elite 275-unit property with a collection of health, dining, fitness, cultural and other lifestyle features.
Molding a 356,000-sq-ft senior housing development from the 1928 structure—originally the Leverich Towers Hotel and later a facility for the Jehovah’s Witnesses—has entailed preserving a landmark facade, rehabilitating interiors and conducting an underground effort to carve out amenity and utility spaces.