Check out last week’s New York Times City Section for the story on the 10 crumbling buildings on Admirals’ Row, which once housed high-ranking officers but now stand vacant. The city wants to purchase the structures from the National Guard and demolish them to make room for a grocery store that would serve and employ local residents, especially those from the nearby Farragut Houses. Historical preservationists, like those who make up the FGA, want the city to grant the 150-year old buildings landmark status and restore them — a project that, according to the Guard, could cost as much as $20 million.

At the meeting Monday night, FGA member Paul Palazzo suggested that the restoration of the houses would be a boon to the community, bringing in profits from tourism that could be used to improve other areas of the neighborhood. “We have a valuable historical asset that can be turned into cash!” he said. Palazzo, well aware that the majority of community members are in favor of the plan to build a grocery store on the site, assured his audience “we can have our cake and eat it too.” (The phrase comes straight from a December post by Brownstoner, which slammed David Yassky, Tish James, and other elected officials for contending that the pricey preservation of the buildings would kill any hope for a supermarket.)

Toward that end, the Association has brought Professor Brent Porter, a professor of architecture at the Pratt Institute, on board to design a proposal that preserves the houses from demolition while still providing area residents with a grocery store.

The FGA has begun seeking developers and supermarket chains to sign on to the plan, which Porter says will be completed by May. At that time, the FGA will present the plan to the National Guard, which must review “viable alternative proposals” before handing the land over to the city.

“We do not feel a mega supermarket…is necessary,” said FGA Chair Howard Pitsch. “We could do with much less and save the houses.” He pointed out that the land parcel on which the houses sit has an area of six acres, and asserted that a market could take up only two of those acres and still be sufficient. “Think of the Park Slope Key Foods,” he urged the audience. “It’s a lovely store with 80 parking spaces, on only one and a half acres.”

Porter’s plan addresses the financial burdens associated with preservation in two ways: by lowering the cost of repairing the houses and by making sure that they are reused in ways beneficial to community members.

Porter has had to do some fancy footwork in order to address both goals in the same space; as a result, his sketches look a bit like storyboards for a sci-fi movie. For instance, he suggests reducing the air conditioning costs for the houses and supermarket using photointake receptors on the roof. His mop of gray hair flopping wildly, he assured the audience that the houses are not in as bad condition as they might think. “The mason walls are fine; it’s just the porches that are falling off,” he said, and skimmed over the difficulties of renovating the vast empty spaces, saying “a few engineers could fix it up” for reuse as a green market.

Among his other ideas? A green space that “Bette Midler could finance” and youth center-cum-bakery.

“Howard said we can have our cake and eat it too,” said Porter, “but I say we can have our bread and bake it too!” Chuckling at his own joke, he showed his plans to adapt the houses for reuse as a bakery at which children could participate in after-school baking classes.

“With a little imagination, we can do it,” he effused.

Here’s what’s going on, as explained well in the Daily News: The Navy Yard Development Corporation is looking to develop a supermarket on the site of 10 decrepit mansions that once housed top officers of the Navy. Historic preservationists have sought, without success, to get the structures landmarked. Now the National Guard, which owns the buildings, has issued a report concluding that the buildings could be restored — at a price of nearly $20 million in all.

Now, we’re all familiar with the usual development scenario in New York City, as we’ll amply cover it on this site: Big developer proposes a project, government greases the way with rezoning and subsidies, neighbors rally to block the project. At first blush that looks like what we’ve got here. But. Brooklynites are struggling right now with the deep contradictions of the current path of downtown development, and it’ll make the Admiral’s Row saga a fascinating one to follow.

Downtown Brooklyn is a hotbed of historic preservation and its devotees, understandably so given the area’s architectural treasures. But it also cries out for greater investment in essential amenities — and while residents have been yearning for years for something as basic as a full-scale supermarket, it’s only with the arrival of wealthy new settlers that developers are taking those demands seriously (well, Bruce Ratner gave downtown the Atlantic Center Pathmark, but I don’t dare give the guy credit for anything).

So what we’ve got are some truly difficult choices, and a false zero-sum choice between preservation and progress that suggests a need to rehab how we approach historic preservation. With the bias of spending way too much time in the blogosphere, I sense a growing awareness out there that we can’t have it all — hardline historic preservation; modern shopping and amenities; housing for upper-middle-income families, never mind everyone else — and that, to fall into the passive voice for a moment, someone will have to make some tough decisions, and help conceive and broker creative win-win solutions.

I’d like to ask Brooklyn: Who do you want to make these decisions? You? Or “them”? Choice #2 is what got us Atlantic Yards, the Freedom Tower, name your favorite monstrous-and-unresponsive development here. When my intern and I were putting together the FAQ for downtown Brooklyn we were stunned to discover only one group, FUREE, actively involved in advocating to shape downtown development. (If we’ve missed anybody, please contact us at ted [at] theeminentdomain [dot] org — we want to hear from you!)

We’ll leave it to FUREE members, many of whom live in the Farragut, Walt Whitman and Navy Yard Houses, to describe their own vision and needs for the area. Look forward to hearing from them here on The Eminent Domain. But they can’t do it alone — others are also going to have to step up and thoughtfully guide those painful decisions.