LOOK: Huge Red Hook Office Complex Planned Behind IKEA

Rendering courtesy of Thor Equities

RED HOOK, BROOKLYN — The industrial area of Red Hook facing the Erie Basin, best known for its monstrous IKEA outpost, is about to become a little less of a junkyard.

Architecture firm Foster + Partners released a rendering Wednesday of their plans for the 7.7-acre lot behind IKEA at 280 Richards St., owned by developer Thor Equities — and we can't find much wrong with it.

For once, we're not looking at some gross, Jenga-style tower-tropolis blocking everyone's view of the ocean and overcompensating for some billionaire's inadequacies.

Instead, the architect keeps it low-profile with four stories — plus a gorgeous roof deck — of retail and office space, housed in two sleek, glassy rectangles and encircled in waterfront walkways.

Via Foster + Partners:

The 7.7-acre property will include two heavy timber frame buildings totaling more than 600,000 square feet of creative office space, and 23,000 square feet of retail and restaurant space. The design also features expansive, open floorplates of approximately 100,000 square feet.

Surrounded by water on three sides with clear views of the Statue of Liberty and Lower Manhattan, the campus will include a public waterfront esplanade designed by SCAPE/Landscape Architecture, as well as a central open courtyard and rooftop space for future tenants.

The property is conveniently situated next to the IKEA Express Shuttle to Lower Manhattan. And its developers make some telling assumptions — not unlike city officials — when they say in their press release: "A planned Brooklyn-Queens streetcar will also serve the neighborhood."