Kingsboro Place Master Plan
Project Stats
- Location
New York, New York
- Size
7 acres, 1.1 million SF
- Role
Master Planner
- Market
- Expertise
A modern, mixed-use affordable housing proposal in the heart of Brooklyn
Kingsboro Place is a proposed community-focused affordable housing development sited on a portion of the Kingsboro Psychiatric Center campus in central Brooklyn’s East Flatbush neighborhood. Created as part of New York State’s $1.4 billion Vital Brooklyn initiative — which aims to create a new model for development and wellness in historically underserved communities — this proposal offers both permanent and interim housing, substantial community facilities, retail opportunities, and a new public park. Building on decades of award-winning expertise in large-scale urban master planning, community engagement, and mixed-use development, the team led the development of Kingsboro Place’s conceptual master plan, including the street and block layout, building massing and programming, and public realm design.
Leveraging development for community benefit
Led by a partnership of local real estate developers and sheltered housing providers, the master plan proposes over 1,000 residential units, 400 beds for homeless individuals, 80,000 square feet of community facilities, 28,000 square feet of retail space, and a one-acre public park.
A majority of the proposal’s residential units are targeted towards low- and moderate-income individuals and families, people with severe mental illness, and residents in need of supportive and transitional housing. Education, arts and culture are central to the plan, which provides new facilities for the Boys Club of New York, Girls Inc, We Run Brownsville, Center Shot Archers and the Brooklyn Bridge Fencing Club. A new grocery store, farmer’s market plaza and health clinic further reinforce a focus on healthy living and community.
Creating lasting opportunity
Extending across three contiguous city blocks and totaling more than seven acres and 1.1 million square feet, the state-run Kingsboro Psychiatric Center’s campus is ideally situated to serve as a community hub for the surrounding Flatbush, East Flatbush, Crown Heights and Ocean Hill/Brownsville neighborhoods, which include some of the borough’s most historically under-resourced districts.
The conceptual master plan for Kingsboro Place focuses on the westernmost third of this campus, which is currently gated and closed off from the city street grid and the adjacent communities. Divided into four quadrants — Phase 1 North and South, and Phase 2 North and South — the plan envisions four primary buildings set within an array of new public spaces. The first of these spaces is an expansive courtyard park that restores pedestrian access through the site between two major thoroughfares — Winthrop Street on the north side and Clarkson Avenue to the south — and offers a vibrant and appealing front door to the new development through its passive and active recreational areas. Other key public realm elements include an interior “event street” designed for activations and community programming.
Massing of the buildings is intended to emphasize this public realm, with the phase two structures stepping back from the courtyard park as they rise. All four buildings are conceived as U-shaped structures that feature large, landscaped central courtyards at the second level, with one aspect fully open to adjacent public spaces. The cumulative result is the transformation of an enclosed and disconnected institutional campus into a dynamic extension of this central Brooklyn crossroads.
This project was completed by Cooper Robertson prior to its acquisition by Corgan in November 2025.
