UOVO, a collector-founded artwork storage facility within the U.S., is searching for approval in New York to construct a second location within the Bushwick neighborhood of Brooklyn.
The proposed seven-story, 240,000 sq. ft constructing could be situated at 74 Bogart Avenue, at present a car parking zone, and would broaden the corporate’s footprint close to its current 150,000 sq. ft Bushwick facility, which the corporate opened earlier than the pandemic in 2020.
Based in 2013 by Steven Guttman, a Miami-based actual property developer, UOVO operates 30 areas throughout the U.S., with a large-scale headquarters facility in Queens.
The corporate, which shops and manages collections for museums, galleries, and high-net-worth people, is aiming to transform the Bushwick lot right into a cupboard space for personal and company homeowners of artworks, collections of wine, and trend archives.
The developer, who constructed an adjoining CubeSmart facility, acquired the undeveloped website for $45.5 million in 2019, in line with native data. Structure agency S9 will oversee the design if the plan is accepted by town.
There are indicators of neighborhood pushback on-line to UOVO’s proposed plan, with a circulating open letter addressed to a Brooklyn zoning board elevating concern over the impacts of creating such a big industrial space that isn’t getting used for residents there.
The lot is situated within the District 34, an space that metropolis officers have mentioned has skilled a number of the most intensive residential displacement in New York Metropolis.
Scrutiny over the corporate’s enlargement has up to now been heightened by points with its labor document. In the course of the pandemic, when many artwork handler jobs misplaced employment because of the momentary shuttering of public and industrial artwork establishments, UOVO was accused of retaliating in opposition to workers trying to unionize. The corporate has denied the allegations.
In prior statements, UOVO has maintained that’s it dedicated to the general public profit in New York, citing a $25,000 annual artist prize it distributes in tandem with the Brooklyn Museum and forthcoming plans to assist renovate Bushwick’s Maria Hernandez Park.
