The Grand Street Framework was developed by a team of Hunter College urban planning students on behalf of the Grand St. Business Improvement District (Grand St. BID), who sought ideas for how the BID might steward its corridor in response to a handful of interrelated changes. Grand Street flows across North Brooklyn from the Williamsburg Bridge to Newtown Creek, joining Queens to Brooklyn to Manhattan.
Grand’s streetscape juggles conflicting multi-modal demands within a limited physical space; current zoning stipulations lack the specificity to preserve Grand Street’s character in the face of redevelopment; fast-rising property values and rents outpace the budgets of local businesses and long-term residents; and solutions to these problems require greater resources than the BID currently has access to.
This studio explores four different categories of strategies that the BID can select from to support local businesses and ameliorate external pressures. These categories are Public Realm, Zoning & Land Use, Neighborhood Trust, and BID Expansion.
Read the report here: http://www.hunterurban.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/Grand_St_Framework_v13.pdf
Grand Street Business Improvement District
Spring 2026
Jason Brody, Ph.D.
Annie Park, Derek Boriack, Dylan Brown, Emi Araki, Finnegan Warfield, Jacob Smith, Kiron Roy, Matthew Wiecha, Michael Jennings, Pedro Tejada, Shebanay Griffith, Sheridan Ash