The Plan: Eighty Nine DeKalb Offers Residents a Smart and Sustainable Home

RXR’s 30-story residential tower in Brooklyn is a 100 percent all-electric building that infuses smart technology with hotel-like hospitality. 

Designed by architecture and urban planning firm Perkins Eastman, Eighty Nine DeKalb topped out in August 2024 at (wait for it) 89 DeKalb Avenue, was approved for occupancy before the new year, and was 25 percent pre-leased at the start of the 2025 holiday season. Of Eighty Nine DeKalb’s 324 residences, 98 have been designated as middle-income housing units. 

“While this is a tower building, there is a sense that it is very boutique in its feel,” said Whitney Arcaro, chief revenue officer of RXR’s residential arm. “The spaces feel very intimate, but, at the same time, there’s an expansive set of choices for how the residents want to interact with their own unique unit and the amenity spaces, and what they offer and provide.” 

Units range from studios to two-bedrooms with market-rate rents running between $3,700 and over $7,000 per month. The apartments were designed by Whitehall Interiors and feature elements including warm millwork throughout the kitchen and pantry areas, light-colored flooring, a rich yet neutral tone in the bathrooms, custom appliances, and smart windows by View.

The smart window technology features an electrochromatic coating that allows residents to adjust how sunlight streams into their homes. Residents can maximize natural light and views.

“This is a very unique feature with our windows because they are such expansive glass. Some of the living spaces have up to 16-foot ceilings, with floor-to-ceiling windows,” Arcaro said. “You’re looking at a floor-to-
ceiling, wall-to-wall glass line. And to have the ability to have preset View glass mechanisms to actually help occlude bright light when required or to have full exposure is a very unique feature in the building.”

Eighty Nine DeKalb also offers indoor amenities spread over 6,400 interior square feet and an additional 10,000 square feet of outdoor space divided across two patios. Perks include a fitness center, a lounge, a library, coworking spaces, podcast rooms and an outdoor adult jungle gym. The patios will have seating areas, grills and firepits. 

“What’s interesting about the design of the building is that it is set back and it kind of has this wedding cake look to it,” said Rebecca D’Eloia, executive vice president and development project executive at RXR. “For each of those setbacks we were able to provide incredible terraces for those units. It’s an unprecedented amount of open space for a rental product in this market, which is really cool.” 

Additionally, in partnership with Long Island University (LIU), Eighty Nine DeKalb features 55,000 square feet of academic and office space for the school’s pharmacy department, which will have its own entrance separate from the residences. 

“Their pharmacy program is growing, and one of the things they wanted to do for the students was to have a place where private industry could come in and have direct interface with students in an academic setting,” D’Eloia said. 

RXR is also working with LIU to fit out space for the school’s culinary program as well as on some ground-floor retail offerings.

Amanda Schiavo can be reached at aschiavo@commercialobserver.com.