Downtown Brooklyn’s onetime retail giant is gearing up for a second act. Developers have rolled out plans to turn the former Macy’s inside the historic Abraham & Straus building at 422 Fulton St. into BKX, a five-floor, 440,000-square-foot mashup of entertainment, dining and retail. The concept would carve a new central atrium into the middle of the structure while preserving much of the original architectural detailing, reimagining the department-store footprint that anchored Fulton Street for generations and aiming to serve both neighborhood regulars and out-of-town visitors.
What developers are pitching
United American Land is billing BKX as a flexible playground of “location-based entertainment,” food and beverage and flagship retail all under one very large roof, according to the Brooklyn Eagle. Marketing materials describe roughly 440,000 square feet spread over five levels, with typical floor plates running 60,000 to 70,000 square feet and ceiling heights ranging from 18 to 22 feet, per a deck from Dreamscape. The plan keeps historic features in place while dropping in a light-filled central atrium designed to visually and physically tie the floors together.
Ownership and backstory
The property changed hands in late 2024, when a group led by the Laboz family - including United American Land, Crown Acquisitions and the Jackson Group - bought the site and lined up Dreamscape Retail & Entertainment as a development partner, The Real Deal reported. Al Laboz, who also chairs the Fulton Mall Improvement Association, pointed to the surge of new housing in Downtown Brooklyn and the area’s transit access as reasons the building is “a tremendous location” for a large-format retail and entertainment project, according to The Real Deal.
Transit and scale
Developers are leaning hard on connectivity. BKX would sit a short walk from Atlantic Terminal and a cluster of subway stops that, according to a presentation from Dreamscape, puts it within reach of 11 subway lines plus the Long Island Rail Road. For national brands looking for big urban footprints, the deck highlights more than 180 feet of frontage along Fulton Street and bills the property as “the largest block of retail space available anywhere in New York City.”
What comes next
For now, the team is focused on marketing the space for lease. A construction schedule and tenant lineup have not been released, and the purchase price for the 2024 sale has not been disclosed, according to The Real Deal. Neighbors, nearby retailers and city agencies will be watching as the design-review and permitting process unfolds; at the moment, the glossy renderings and marketing decks remain the clearest public window into the scale and ambition of the project, the Brooklyn Eagle noted.
