MetroTech to receive a $50 million renovation—and a new name

The overhaul will include remodeled offices and green space, as well as a rechristening to Brooklyn Commons

MetroTech Center, which is arguably one of Brooklyn’s more depressing places, is getting a $50 million renovation as well as a new name.

Brookfield Properties, its owner, is renaming the sprawling and somewhat soulless downtown area to Brooklyn Commons and has announced plans to renovate several of the office buildings, thereby upgrading the mostly concrete public park space. A new, year-round arts and entertainment venue housing free events is also planned.

Specifically, 1, 2 and 15 MetroTech office buildings are getting new lobbies, outdoor terraces and revamped ground-floor retail. The dreary 3.6-acre park, currently home to a few benches, will get new seating, lighting, signage and “redesigned landscaping, seasonal gardens, and plantings.”

The developer said in a press release that’s “taking lessons” from its “successful overhaul” of Brookfield Place in southern Manhattan that made the 1980s shopping and office area slightly less bleak.

Built around the same time, MetroTech Center (er, Brooklyn Commons) is being redeveloped to modernize the 16-acre, 12-building campus and “weave it into the surrounding neighborhoods.” The area was originally designed as a “self-contained office park for data-processing centers and back office for financial institutions,” Brookfield said.

Currently, the campus houses a who’s-who of local and national institutions including JPMorgan Chase, National Grid, NYU Tandon School of Engineering and Slate Media. Moving forward, Brookfield said Brooklyn Commons will become an “integrated, open campus for the 21st century,” so we’re surely going to see a cryptocurrency office soon enough.

Completion is scheduled by the end of 2023.