Pfizer Sells, But Not to Local Groups

Pfizer has sent a letter notifying Community Board 1 that they have reached an agreement to sell the last remaining large parcels of land from the drug giant’s ancestral home. The agreement is with a group called 306 Rutledge Street II LLC, a “company acting on behalf of investors who have deep roots in the local community”. The LLC, which has a mailing address of 173 Wallabout Street, appears to have formed within the past week or so.

I have been told that these investors are not the coalition of community groups who had offered Pfizer $10 million for the properties, with plans to develop the sites as affordable housing. Although Pfizer’s letter offered few details, they specifically did not mention housing, affordable or otherwise.

338 Berry Tenants to be Evicted?

The residents of 338 Berry Street (the old Tung Fa Noodle building) bought themselves some time in 2004, but as a result, may be missing out the loft-law protections that were enacted in 2010:

Seeing the writing on the wall, the residents of the building’s work-live lofts signed agreements with the previous landlord allowing them to stay until 2011.

But in 2010 the state revised the Loft Law — to put such artist-occupied spaces under rent stabilization.

The Berry Street tenants claim the legislation supersedes their agreement. But Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice Bert Bunyan two weeks ago sided with the current landlord, Mona Gora-Friedman, who wants to show them the door…

The 2010 Loft Law revision qualified the Berry Street lofts for rent-stabilization protection – but it was too late. Bunyan determined the new law didn’t contain language allowing for it to override the tenants’ 2004 agreement.

[Via Brownstoner]

77 Commercial Street Sells

04/13/2012 | Comment

According to the Real Deal, Manhattan-based Chetrit Group has purchased the 95,000 sf warehouse at 77 Commercial Street in Greenpoint. The property is one of the northernmost waterfront parcels that were rezoned to residential in the 2005 rezoning, and the potential development on the site could in a big, bigger or biggest development scenario.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out. What is the market for housing at this location, and how much of a market is there? First off, the site is, in the words of the broker on the deal, “‘not the most centrally located’ site in Brooklyn”. This site is basically at the very end of Manhattan Avenue, a long walk from either the bus, subway or ferry. The property does have 220 feet or so of water frontage, and will have great views and (hopefully) a beautiful city park next door. But – that water frontage is all along the mouth of Newtown Creek; a lot of those views are of Queens (and eventually more towers across the creek in Hunters Point South); and, the City has yet to acquire the adjacent property for a park, let alone fund clean up and capital costs. (It’s also worth asking when the developer plans to building – they’ve completed one project in the area, at 175 Kent, but have at least one other large development site, at Union and Metropolitan, that they’ve been sitting on for a few years now.)

The second question is how big will the developer go here? The base zoning – as with all the waterfront parcels rezoned in 2005 – is relatively low, but there is a sizable floor area incentive under inclusionary zoning for a developer to add 20% affordable housing (without any public review). Beyond that, though, there are also a ton of air rights available from the adjacent parcel at 65 Commercial Street (300,000 sf, according to the Real Deal). Those air rights come with strings attached – in addition to a full ULURP review, the purchasers are supposed to build an additional 200 units of affordable housing (15% of the new affordable housing committed to by the city). And the rights are supposed generate at least $12 million (in 2005 dollars) to create a $2 million “Greenpoint Williamsburg Tenant Legal Fund” as well as provide $10 million to help offset costs associated with creating inclusionary housing on other waterfront properties.

Which raises a third question (largely related to the first one), is there even a market for these air rights? Either with this developer, or the developer of the other adjacent parcel at 37 Commercial.

Census Numbers Show Big Jump in Brooklyn Population

Brooklyn’s population took a huge jump from the 2010 “actual” numbers in the federal census to this year’s estimate by the same agency.

Borough pols said the increase is more evidence the agency botched the official count. If the numbers are right, it would mean the borough grew almost six times faster after the Census than in an average year from 2000 to 2010.

There really isn’t doubt that the 2010 numbers for Brooklyn are just plain wrong. The numbers for Greenpoint and Williamsburg show much lower growth than would be expected just by mashing up 2000 census numbers with the thousands of new housing created from 2001 on. The numbers are so suspect that it’s almost not even worth citing them in any meaningful analysis.

Bagels and Health Food Give Way to Chain

You’re not going to see a Starbucks there,” said Backer. “It’s too expensive for them.

Going on record here that whatever goes there will probably suck more than a Starbucks (unless, of course, it’s an Apple Store…).

Advancing the Starbucks Rumor

Speaking of baseless retail rumors, Millenium Health moved out of their space at Bedford and North 3rd this weekend (like their former neighbor The Bagel Store, Millenium is reopening on the Southside). Combined with the Bagel space, this makes for an even bigger potential retail (and rumor) space.

Say Goodbye to the Salvation Army

04/09/2012 | Comment

Brownstoner notes that the demolition of the Salvation Army building at Bedford and North 7th Street is imminent (the site appears to include the stucco building adjacent at 153 North 7th Street too). What will go in its place, though, remains a mystery. Brownstoner has an image of a zoning diagram showing a two-story commercial structure – which could be for a new Salvation Army or could be for another retailer. No clue on what it will look like, either, though a promising sign is that the architect is Fradkin McAlpin, whose portfolio includes the recent renovation of the Brooklyn Brewery.

Cue the Apple Store rumors. Or perhaps the architect is a clue?!

Domino Falls Down

Molly Heintz, in A|N:

[New CPC head] Cestero will be responsible for addressing Domino’s future as well as the bigger question of whether, given its mission, CPC-CPCR should have been involved with such a project in the first place.

CPCR Donated Over $100k to Local Supporters

03/28/2012 | Comment

According to the Brooklyn Paper, Community Preservation Corporation Resources, the for-profit developer leading the effort to redevelop the Domino Sugar site, paid out at least $100,000 to local groups over a two-year period. The neighborhood groups, which include El Puente, Los Sures, and Keren Ezer, received $10,000 each. (A fourth neighborhood group – Churches United – which is now defunct, received $30k.)

Not surprisingly, each of these groups was among the most vocal and active supporters of the Domino rezoning.

This really shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone – CPCR surely spent more than that on “public reputation” over the 5 or 6 years they spent getting the rezoning approved (including, for instance, T-shirts, box lunches and buses for the supporters they brought in from places like East New York). The period during which these payments were made (February 2008 through December 2009) doesn’t even cover the public review process in 2010, in which CPCR was able to bring out large blocks of supporters to a series of public hearings before CB1, the Borough President, City Planning and the City Council.

The article certainly seems to indicate that CPCR spent more than this, as it cites at least $20,000 (or maybe two $20,000 payments – the editing is not clear) going to Churches United for Fair Housing in late 2010 and 2011. (CUFH is a different entity from the defunct Churches United that received $30k from CPCR. CUFH’s members were also the most vocal supporters of the project.) If CPCR didn’t spend any more money than the article documents, they got a very good deal.

The recipients of CPCR’s largesse are, of course, vigorously contesting all assertions of impropriety, saying that this type of thing happens all the time (which is certainly the case), that they supported the project before any money changed hands, and that, of course, they would never sell their support. All this may be (and probably is) true, but whether or not anything improper did happen, the taint of impropriety is redolent.

As Norm Siegel told the Brooklyn Paper:

If the developer was giving community groups money five or 10 years before their mission, that would be one thing, but if the developer is giving money for the first and perhaps the last time, it raises the question whether the donor is buying recipients support and it raises questions about the community groups themselves.