A residential project with almost 400 homes is on its way to Red Hook.
Joel Braver, who heads up the Brooklyn construction firm Express Builders, recently filed plans with the Department of Buildings for a development at 498 Columbia St. that will stand 8 stories and 85 feet tall with 371 residential units. It will span about 227,000 square feet and include 10 parking spots and community space on the ground floor as well.
Braver filed demolition permits for the 1-story, 60,000-square-foot retail property at the site in late June, city records show. It was built in 1929, according to the commercial real estate database CoStar.
This project may just be the first of three intended for the site, which is also addressed as 37 Otsego St. A July fact sheet about the property from the state’s Department of Environmental Conservation says the planned development includes a trio of 8-story buildings and a roughly 12,000-square-foot landscaped area.
Braver’s construction firm has previously worked on major projects in Soundview in the Bronx, SoHo and Williamsburg. A limited liability company linked to developer Solomon Feder appears to be involved with the project as well, according to city and state records.
Braver and Feder did not respond to requests for comment by press time.
Red Hook is relatively inaccessible by public transportation and has not seen the type of major housing influx many other Brooklyn neighborhoods have in recent years. Although the B61 bus line and South Brooklyn ferry both stop there, the closest subway stations are in Carroll Gardens and still a fairly long walk to many parts of the neighborhood.
The city’s former chief urban designer, Alexandros Washburn, did file plans in October 2020 for a 210-unit project in the neighborhood at 145 Wolcott St. The area was also home to Brooklyn’s largest investment sale of 2022: CBRE’s purchase of an industrial property at 640 Columbia St. for $332 million.
Plans for large, new residential buildings like the one at 498 Columbia St. have been rare in the city in recent months. Developers filed plans for just nine buildings with 100 or more units during the final quarter of 2023, the fourth quarter in a row with 10 or fewer large projects, according to a report from the Real Estate Board of New York. The group has mainly attributed this slow housing production to the lack of a replacement for the 421-a affordable housing tax break, which expired almost two years ago.
Eddie Small , 2024-03-12 16:41:18
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