Dushinsky’s Rabsky Group plans nearly 800 units on former Pfizer site

Developer asking for rezoning of two Wallabout St. blocks 

249 And 334 Wallabout Street in Bedford-Stuyvesant
249 And 334 Wallabout Street in Bedford-Stuyvesant

The developer working to transform Bushwick’s Rheingold Brewery site into a mammoth rental project is now looking to build a pair of large apartment buildings on the former Pfizer site at the edge of Bedford–Stuyvesant.

Simon Dushinsky’s Rabsky Group has filed an application to rezone a pair of blocks at the Flushing Avenue G-train stop, which would pave the way for a pair of mixed-use buildings, according to papers the developer filed with the Department of City Planning.

The full-block properties at 249 And 334 Wallabout Street, now zoned for manufacturing, would hold two buildings with a total of 622 market-rate units, 155 affordable units and nearly 32,000 square feet of retail. Dushinsky paid $12.8 million in 2012 to buy the properties from Pfizer, the pharmaceutical giant.

The developer, one of the industry’s most mysterious and under-the-radar figures, could not be immediately reached for comment. Rabsky has built some apartment buildings further down Wallabout, but unlike the ODA Architecture-designed buildings at the Rheingold site, these are done in a more modest style.

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Like seemingly every part of Brooklyn, this nook of the borough at the edge of Bedford-Stuyvesant and South Williamsburg is seeing its fair share of investment.

Sitting right next to the famed Marcy Houses that hip-hop titan Jay Z grew up in, Dushinsky’s sites are part of a portfolio Pfizer started selling off after it shuttered its Brooklyn headquarters in 2008.

Acumen Capital Partners picked up a 575,000 square-foot building in 2011 and has transformed it into 630 Flushing, an office property catering to small businesses seeking short-term leases and the flexibility to renovate their spaces.

Dushinsky is one of the more active developers in the outer-boroughs, working on the aforementioned Rheingold Brewery site as well as projects in Park Slope, Williamsburg and Long Island City.