For the 30-plus years I’ve covered spot rezonings, developers have routinely proposed bigger buildings than they need, knowing the local City Council member will shrink them to pacify NIMBY constituents.
A rare exception is the Brooklyn Yards project, which will stand on a platform straddling railroad tracks in Borough Park. Its economics and design have major implications for housing production in the city.
Developers David Tabak and Meyer Lebovits spread their 270-unit development over 14 predominantly low-scale buildings, most of them walkups. I cannot recall anyone else going through the time and expense of Ulurp to build walkups.
Because of its low scale, Brooklyn Yards sailed through the approval process with minimal opposition. But that is not why architecture firm Studio V designed it that way. The firm itself was surprised to find that towers were not the most profitable choice.
“We figured we needed density to build our way out of a platform cost, but we actually found that [four- to six-story buildings] produced a better return,” Studio V principal and founder Jay Valgora said in an interview.
The lower heights meant that Tabak and Lebovits could use lighter materials, which are less expensive, and omit elevators and a second exit stairway from the four-story buildings.
Elevators are three to four times more expensive in the United States than elsewhere, according to the nonprofit Center for Building in North America, because they must be large enough to accommodate a stretcher. (“The Economics of Everyday Things” podcast has an excellent episode on elevators. Here’s the transcript.)
An extra stairwell also sucks up dollars and square footage that could go to apartments, and does not appear to improve fire safety to any meaningful degree, the same nonprofit found.
Brooklyn Yards might have gone with four stories for all of its residential buildings except that the developers did not own enough of the surrounding land to have separate entrances for each structure, Valgora said. The project will also have one commercial building next to the New Utrecht Avenue subway station with retail at the base and professional offices above.
The development provides a model for building over the 14-mile freight line, which the Metropolitan Transportation Authority plans to use for its Interborough Express from Bay Ridge to Jackson Heights. The IBX, which will connect 17 subway lines, will enhance the value of the adjacent real estate, as will Studio V’s proof of concept design.
“We figure the IBX line, with small rail overbuilds like ours plus adjacent areas, will produce 70,000 residences,” Valgora said.
For context, the ballyhooed City of Yes is expected to yield 82,000 over 15 years. The agency behind it, the Department of City Planning, has reached out to Studio V about replicating its Borough Park blueprint elsewhere.
The MTA is also working with the firm to ensure Brooklyn Yards is compatible with the IBX, which will squeeze four tracks into a trench that includes a jet fuel conduit called the Buckeye Pipeline.
“The Brooklyn Yards site is the most challenging because it’s the narrowest,” Valgora said. “If you can solve it at Brooklyn Yards, you can solve it anywhere.”
What we’re thinking about: Will lenders finance any small rental projects that, under 485x, must make half of their units permanently affordable and rent-stabilized, given the possibility of a four-year or eight-year rent freeze for those units under Zohran Mamdani? Send your thoughts to eengquist@therealdeal.com.
A thing we’ve learned: About 500,000 market-rate apartments are in rent-stabilized buildings counted in Rent Guidelines Board data, according to the New York Apartment Association. Rising rents in those units explain the 12 percent net operating income gain in 2023 for the asset class, a number that does not reflect the increasing distress in fully rent-stabilized buildings.
Elsewhere…
Forty years after his rap classic (with Doug E. Fresh) “La Di Da Di” swept across the city, Slick Rick has a new album featuring a track called “Landlord.” It details the headaches of being a small New York City housing provider, primarily the struggle to collect rent.
“This goes out to all the landlords in New York City,” he announces at the outset.
The first verse:
Well, it’s the first of the month, my, where the time went? (Ding-dong)
Hello, you wanna give my rent?
You’re three months behind, chick, I’m highly disappointed
Tired of huntin’ you down like America’s most wanted
Another line:
Got ’til 9:30 to bring this
Then I’m coming back to unscrew the door hinges
The track runs through a litany of troubles familiar to small landlords and property managers: tenants making excuses for not paying, moving relatives into their apartment, shuttling mysterious people in and out, making a mess that attracts mice and roaches, upsetting other tenants with boisterous behavior and suddenly going quiet when the landlord knocks on the door (“Yoohoo, derelict, I know your ass is in there”).
The 60-year-old rapper, whose given name is Ricky Martin Lloyd Walters, was born in London but came of age in New York City. His Jamaican parents immigrated to the U.S. when he was 11 and settled in the Baychester section of the Bronx.
He attended LaGuardia High School (the setting for the movie “Fame,”) where he formed the Kangol Crew with rapper Dana Dane.
Walters was later convicted of attempted murder, fought off deportation, was pardoned by Gov. David Paterson and in 2016 became a U.S. citizen. The new album, “Victory,” is his first in 26 years.
Closing time
Residential: The top residential deal recorded Wednesday was $16.5 million for a 5,607-square-foot condominium unit at 150 Charles Street in the West Village. Josh Rubin at Douglas Elliman had the listing.
Commercial: The top commercial deal recorded was $24.4 million for two apartment buildings totalling 65 units and 176,064 square feet at 7410-7420 Ridge Boulevard in Bay Ridge.
New to the Market: The highest price for a residential property hitting the market was $26.5 million for a 7,000-square-foot townhouse at 60 West Ninth Street in Greenwich Village. Jed Garfield, Matthew Lesser and Matthew Pravda of Leslie J. Garfield have the listing. The home last sold for $9.8 million in 2019.
Breaking Ground: The largest new building application filed was for a proposed 56,742-square-foot, 79-unit, mixed-use building at 200 Ashford Street in East New York. Nikolai Katz filed the permit on behalf of Eric Brintauch of Martin Abdul.
— Matthew Elo
