Introducing Sheepshead Bay Road’s Newest Commercial Development

The scaffolding around 1733 Sheepshead Bay Road, the former Bay News / Courier-Life headquarters, has been removed, giving us nosy neighbors a better idea of what the road’s newest monolith is going to look like at street level.

First impressions? The glass-and-steel looking beast has a modern feel, amplified more-so by the rest of the block’s structures, which are just a decade or three shy of a century. Also, it’s damn tall at 70-feet.

Construction began last September and is expected to be completed next month. The building has sat empty since March 13, 2009, when Bay News / Courier-Life moved to Downtown Brooklyn. The building was sold to Alex Finkelstein in August 2008 for $3.1 million. Finkelstein is a local landlord and developer who owns other buildings in the neighborhood, and is shooting for a single retail tenant on the ground floor, and three office tenants on the upper three floors. There’s also the attended parking garage for approximately 68 cars, with a one-car-wide entrance/exit pouring into Sheepshead Bay Road. That’ll be fun.

Of course, it’s not the only modern-looking building on the shopping strip. It’s just the latest and the largest. And it’s that last bit – the size – that has some locals shaking their head in disapproval.

What do you think? Is this a step forward for Sheepshead Bay Road, with others to follow suit? Or is this an out of place tower that will never fit, and whose garage will add to congestion?