Downtown Brooklyn’s City Point development just got two major new additions to its entertainment scene — and there are plenty more changes in the wings.
The shopping and social complex — they don’t like the word “mall” — at 445 Albee Square West is now home to a versatile new nightlife venue and speakeasy bar, joining its popular food hall DeKalb Market that opened in June 2017.
DeKalb Stage is a 7,500-square-foot “live entertainment venue” that will host concerts, dance parties and even performing arts and theater, or become a private event space that can hold 300 people.
Most importantly though, when there’s not a show going on the venue adds 250 seats to the always-crowded food hall with 40 vendors, including an outpost of Katz’s Deli, Smorgasburg hit turned brick-and-mortar shop Kotti Berliner and Arepa Lady.
There’s also a new speakeasy bar Understudy accessible through a discreet door next to DeKalb Stage, serving cocktails, beer and wine. It’s open whether or not there’s a show going on, Mon-Wed 3 p.m.-midnight and Thurs-Sun 11 a.m. to 2 a.m.
DeKalb Stage and Understudy join other City Point tenants Trader Joe’s, Target, a pop-up virtual reality arcade by Yokey Pokey and several independent retailers.
And there are more changed coming. SoHo-based bookstore McNally Jackson, just saved from the verge of closing after a rent hike at its original Prince Street home, is bringing a two-story outpost to Downtown Brooklyn (and another at the South Street Seaport).
Coming to City Point: More Alamo Drafthouse
Trying to see a movie at Alamo Drafthouse’s always sold out Downtown Brooklyn theater is getting easier too, with a major expansion in the works.
The dine-in movie house opened in October 2016 and currently occupies the fourth and fifth floors of City Point with seven screens. They just announced plans to add the third floor as well, where high-end clothing store Century 21 recently shuttered, nearly doubling the theater’s size.
Plans are to turn the fourth floor, currently home to the theater’s lobby and gothic bar/wax museum House of Wax, into nine new theaters. Additional changes include more restrooms, a bigger lobby (which has felt crowded since the theater’s Video Vortex merchandise store opened), an expanded kitchen and more.
Construction will begin this fall — the owners promise business as usual in the fifth-floor screening rooms — and scheduled to open in 2020.
