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Strolling down Kent Avenue along the East River on an immaculately paved path, you can watch the water sparkle on a sunny day. People lounge on the impossibly green grass, sandwiched between the Manhattan skyline and the towering Williamsburg Bridge. Strange playground structures and two massive, ornamental cranes frame a festive taco joint.

This utopian theme park did not exist 20 years ago—the shoreline along the East River used to be what one construction worker on the Domino Sugar Refinery site (a lifelong Brooklynite) called an “industrial shithole.”

A mixed-use public space with a ground floor retail complex and office spaces for lease is being built inside the historic structure of Domino Sugar Refinery, a symbol of Williamsburg’s industrial beginnings. It will be the crowning jewel in the capitalist takeover of Williamsburg once the project is slated to finish in winter 2023.

The $250 million project is part of a larger effort to transform the East River waterfront into a “successful urban development that is about mixed-use, responsible, long-term growth,” as is stated on the developer’s website.

First built in 1855, the Domino Sugar Refinery was a bastion of industrialization. Over its lifespan, the refinery cultivated a large immigrant employee population, offering the surrounding communities robust benefits and stable jobs until it closed its doors in 2004. Many people lost their livelihoods while Williamsburg was simultaneously undergoing rapid development.

Although there were plans to reuse the site for industrial purposes in 2003, the refinery was subsequently declared a historical landmark in 2007, and rezoned for residential use in 2010.

The 11 acres on the East River waterfront now resemble DUMBO, which transformed similarly in recent years. Two Trees, the property management company behind both the DUMBO developments and the Domino Sugar Refinery project, has also constructed two massive residential buildings right next to the refinery, with plans for two more. 325 Kent has 522 units which start at a market rate of $2,785 a month for a studio. “At the moment, I believe this building is at 100% occupancy,” said Llimi Nuñez, a receptionist who has been with 325 Kent since it was built.

All of the units have been purchased, but some may not actually be occupied. Kurt Hill, director of outreach and anti-arson at People’s Firehouse, a civilian-led low-income housing advocacy group, said that it is common for high-rise properties like 325 Kent to have units that remain empty as investment opportunities for upper-middle class buyers who may not live in New York.

The People’s Firehouse and other non-profit organizations in the community proposed an alternate plan to build non-profit managed, low-income housing along the East River waterfront instead of condos, but developers offered a sweeter deal. “The barrier was the profit motive,” Hill said. “You can make a lot more money building high rise condos for rich people than you can building them for working class or lower middle class New Yorkers.”

The Two Trees website claims that they have a “long track record of supporting creative and community-based tenants, integrating affordable housing into market-rate development,” but the units in buildings like 325 Kent are not obtainable for most Brooklynites. In order to qualify for affordable housing in New York City, an applicant must be at or under a certain threshold percentage of the Area Median Income (AMI), calculated by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. In 2017 when 325 Kent was built, 104 units were listed for households making roughly 30% to 50% of the AMI—for which they received 87,000 applications.

The use of the AMI measure to set affordable housing quotas also excludes the people who are still considered low income at 60% to 80% of the AMI. Affordable housing is not available to them, so they are forced to contend with the rising rent prices caused by developments like the Domino Sugar Refinery project.

Marisol, a long-time visitor of Domino Park who lives in the nearby neighborhood of Bedford-Stuyvesant, thinks that high rise developments are only beneficial to the people who are able to claim an apartment. “The average person who lives in this community does not meet the minimum income requirements,” Marisol said. “So the housing market is definitely not targeting people like myself.”

While high rise developments present some immediate housing relief to a select few people in the low-income bracket, the diversity and long-term growth that Two Trees claims to cultivate in its projects is not inclusive of people already living in the community. The long-term repercussions of an increased cost of living fall on the local residents, while the developer reaps the profits. Domino Sugar Refinery, which once represented hope for the working class in Williamsburg, will now become a tool for their exclusion from their long-time communities. As Marisol said, “corporate America always wants a piece of everything.”