The Brooklyn Paper has the story. Here’s an excerpt from the BP article about plans to build a mall next door to IKEA. And you thought it was just going to be a BJ’s.

The BJ’s Wholesale Club destined for the Red Hook waterfront might
be part of a six-level shopping plaza with several other stores and
even some residential units, The Brooklyn Paper has learned.

Documents obtained by The Paper reveal that developer Joe Sitt wants
to renovate a historic warehouse on the former Revere sugar refinery;
erect several new buildings for shopping, parking and housing; and
create a 40-feet-wide public esplanade by 2011 along the water’s edge
of the Beard Street property next door to the recently opened Ikea.

Sitt’s company Thor Equities would not comment about the “request
for proposals” that Sitt issued in July, but if the plans are still
current and the city approves a zoning change to allow commercial and
residential development, the project would catapult Red Hook into the
borough’s major big box retail destination.

The documents, which were part of a package to solicit bids from
architects to build the shopping plaza, sought proposals “to maximize
commercial retail square-footage” of at least 400,000 square feet —
larger than Red Hook’s Ikea.