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New York

Brooklyn gas station owner plans 13-story project

Remica Group seeks rezoning to build Atlantic Ave rentals, offices, retail

Affordable Units Planned To Replace Bed Stuy 7-Eleven
1381 Atlantic Avenue (Google Maps, Getty)

The owner of a large Atlantic Avenue parcel with a BP gas station and 7-Eleven proposed a 13-story, mixed-use building to replace them, city records show.

Remica Property Group filed an application last week for new zoning to raze the gas station at 1381 Atlantic Avenue and erect a 116,165-square-foot development with 110 apartments and 17,231 square feet of office and retail space.

The area is two blocks outside of an Atlantic Avenue corridor that the Adams administration and City Council member Crystal Hudson want to rezone. Their plan calls for more mixed-use, affordable buildings along the Crown Heights and Bedford-Stuyvesant border between Vanderbilt and Nostrand avenues.

Remica will instead seek a spot rezoning from progressive Council member Chi Ossé, whose district includes the gas station. The local member generally controls the fate of rezonings, although City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams did recently push local members in Queens and the Bronx to approve two large projects.

A rezoning of 1381 Atlantic Avenue would trigger the city’s Mandatory Inclusionary Housing program, requiring roughly 25 percent of rentals to be permanently affordable to tenants earning, on average, 60 percent of area median income.

The development is expected to be completed in 2026, but it is not clear if Remica could build it without 421a, a lucrative tax break for rental projects that expired in June 2022. The real estate industry is lobbying the state legislature to restore it in some form next year.

Experts say some rental projects could pencil out without 421a if the developer’s acquisition costs are low. In Remica’s case, it already owns the site, but rents are not especially high in the eastern half of Brooklyn.

A representative from Remica declined to comment.

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Its lot spans 4,840 square feet of commercial space, including the gas station and one-story convenience store built in 2001.

Remica is asking the city to waive a requirement for additional parking space, a request that is sometimes granted by Council members because it allows for more apartments and affordability.

Remica owns at least six other BP locations in Brooklyn, most of which were acquired in mass transfer in 2016 from its former company, Spartan Petroleum. Spartan bought the Atlantic Avenue site for $1.2 million from BP Products North America in 2008.

Remica also owns a pair of KFC locations in Flatbush and Sunset Park and a car wash on Atlantic Avenue, as well as various other properties in Queens and the Bronx.

The rezoning planned by Hudson and Adams just west of Remica’s development site is still taking shape. Advocates say the current zoning prevents new housing and limits new commercial buildings to one or two stories, and demands more parking than needed.

Atlantic Avenue is a heavily trafficked thoroughfare and not pedestrian-friendly, so many of its businesses cater to motorists.

The new zoning is expected to accommodate a variety of uses including housing, retail, office and industrial. It could trigger development and attract restaurants and other new businesses to the area, benefiting Remica’s apartment project.

Any rezoning, however, will raise concerns of gentrification and Black and brown businesses being pushed out.

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421aAffordable HousingAtlantic AvenueBedford-StuyvesantUlur