207 Grand Street (proposed), via Gowanus Lounge.

Via Curbed and GL, a rendering has surfaced of a proposed commercial building at 207 Grand Street (northwest corner of Driggs). The project is build to suit, which basically means nothing will get built unless a retail tenant comes along. Still, its interesting to see that retail is alive and well on Grand Street (contrary to what anti-context advocates have said). In fact, retail is so strong that developers are willing to forego (future) residential FAR in order to construct retail.

The design, by Karl Fischer Architects, is not bad. Its relatively simple (sometimes, as here, that’s a good thing), uses red brick rather than the now-standard black/gray, and even includes some corbelling details at the cornice. Of course its easy to see how an owner could dumb this down pretty quickly with just a little value engineering.