The city is ready to flex its sweeping new housing powers.
Mayor Eric Adams today unveiled a proposal to construct a high-rise on a public parcel in Downtown Brooklyn that at 840 feet would be the second-tallest tower in the borough and among the city’s densest.
Pitched for 395 Flatbush Ave. Extension, where a low-slung 7-story office building sits today, the mixed-use project would contain 1,263 apartments, between 20% and 30% of which would be considered affordable.
Notably, the full-block development at DeKalb Avenue would be one of the first major projects undertaken since state lawmakers last year changed longtime caps on the size of city apartment buildings to allow new ones with much more volume. December’s “City of Yes” zoning overhaul builds on those changes by making it easier to graft them onto low-slung areas.
The proposed tower, a collaboration between development firms Rabina and Park Tower Group, which jointly control the site through a long-term lease with the city through 2072, and the city’s Department of Housing Preservation & Development, also seeks to use another tool in the recently revamped tool box for developers.
Rabina and Park Tower will aim for affordable housing tax breaks offered under 421-a replacement-program 485x, an award that requires paying higher union wages in return.
But the site, in the busy Flatbush corridor, still needs to be rezoned from commercial to residential, a process requiring public input that is slated to kick off in the next few weeks.
“I’m here to support my developers and not fight with my developers,” said Adams in remarks after he unveiled the tower at a real estate forum sponsored by The Real Deal. “We need you.”
Under the plan, Rabina and Park Tower would repurpose the current office building, a black-toned 1974 structure on a 1.2-acre trapezoid lined with stores, into the base of the new tower.
That spire would ultimately offer two floors and 66,000 square feet of retail spaces, an office floor and an amenities floor, according to plans presented by HPD in March to the Public Design Commission. But the bulk of the high-rise would have the 1,263 apartments, 253 to 279 of which would be set aside for those making 80% of the area’s median income or less. The 2024 AMI for a family of four in the New York region is $155,300.
Manhattan-based TenBerke Architects is a designer of the project, whose southern edge at Fulton Street would add a landscaped 4,750-square-foot plaza, the plans show. And an existing subway entrance on the property would get a revamp.
Taxpayer subsidies will not be invested in the project, according to City Hall officials, who were not immediately able to provide an estimated development cost.
Last year state lawmakers eliminated the city’s longtime floor-to-area-ratio cap of 12; floor-to-area ratios determine how much structure one can pack into a site. After the state changes, the FAR cap for the Flatbush Avenue property now stands at a hefty 21.8, making the project potentially one of the densest in the city, officials say.
Adams said he hopes No. 395 inspires other builders to put up projects packed with apartments on city-owned sites in an effort to meet City of Yes goals of constructing 82,000 new units in 15 years.
For decades Brooklyn’s tallest building was the nearby 512-foot Williamsburgh Savings Bank Tower, though it has been eclipsed several times in recent years by residential skyscrapers. The tallest building today is the 1,066-foot Brooklyn Tower at 9 DeKalb. The new tower at 395 Flatbush would clock in at 226 feet below it.
