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The old Domino Sugar plant in Williamsburg is about to get a taste of DUMBO.
Two Trees Management Co. — credited with reviving the former manufacturing zone between the Brooklyn and Manhattan bridges with luxury apartments — has unveiled a $1.5 billion plan to bring a similar transformation to the long-shuttered 11-acre Domino site.
New renderings by SHoP Architects show how the waterfront complex — famous for its neon Domino Sugar sign — will be turned into offices and how other new buildings on the Kent Avenue site have a tall, skinny, open-air design.
Each uses “bridge” patterns that create large, rectangular gaps so the sun can pass through.
The new design, by Two Trees’ father-and-son principals David and Jed Walentas, replaces an earlier design by another developer, CPC Resources.
The CPC plan was criticized for “walling off” the rest of the neighborhood from the waterfront — a problem the new architects hope to remedy.
“It’s an open, connective architecture whose sole purpose is to bring light and air into the neighborhood even though large buildings are being built there,” said Vishaan Chakrabarti, a principal at SHoP.
Two Trees has trimmed some of the earlier project’s retail space and apartments, but now wants to build more than 600,000 square feet of commercial office space — or six times more than CPC had planned.
Jed Walentas said renting offices isn’t as profitable as renting apartments, but the move should pay off “long-term” — as it did for his company in Dumbo — because it would attract many creative tech-companies there to form a “dynamic” live-work neighborhood.
Like DUMBO, the proposed mini-community wouldn’t have big-box stores, and all of its 79,000 square feet of retail space would be ground floor. Nearly all of the 2,284 apartments would be rentals.
CPC came under fire for trying to remove the 19th Century-era refinery’s famous “Domino Sugar” sign. But Walentas says he’s “embracing” the site’s history by also saving cranes, syrup tanks and other artifacts for an outdoor “museum.”
The other buildings would be built from scratch, rising nearly 600 feet. Walentas also said his company would preserve the famous Domino sign.
Two Trees is also increasing the project’s open space by 60 percent, to 5.3 acres, and plans to include a floating pool, kayak launch, esplanade and seasonal ice-skating rink.
The company hopes to soon begin the city’s public land-review process and have necessary zoning changes approved by year’s end, before there’s new leadership at City Hall and Borough Hall.
Two Trees wants to break ground in early 2014 and complete the project in 10 to 15 years.
Councilman Stephen Levin (D-Brooklyn) — who represents the neighborhood and whose support will weigh heavily with the rest of the council — said his first impression is “it’s a very ambitious, very dynamic and interesting plan.”
However, Levin wants Two Trees to keep the same promise CPC made the city — deliver 30 percent of the housing as affordable for low- to middle-income dwellers. By law, Two Trees only has to deliver 20 percent.
rich.calder@nypost.com