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Developer files plans for mixed-use project facing BQE
Local community board voted against rezoning last year
After overcoming concerns about air and sound pollution, Brooklyn developer Bruchy Lefkowitz is moving ahead with plans for a 90-unit mixed-use development facing the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway near Brooklyn Navy Yard.
Lefkowitz, doing business as 462 Lexington Ave LLC, plans to build a 106,000-square-foot, nine-story building at 205 Park Avenue, according to documents filed Wednesday with the Department of Buildings.
About a quarter of the building’s residential floor area, or 23 units, will be made permanently affordable in accordance with a spot rezoning the developer secured for the site last year, converting the zoning for the vacant lot from manufacturing to residential and commercial.
A divided Brooklyn Community Board 2 recommended disapproval of the rezoning Lefkowitz needed for his project. The board, which voted 19-16, “cited concerns about air quality around the site and the appropriateness of residential development, including affordable housing by the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway,” application documents show.
Eric Adams, the Brooklyn borough president, recommended approval of the application with conditions, noting that the development “would be consistent with Mayor Bill de Blasio’s goal of achieving 300,000 affordable housing units over the next decade.” The rezoning was ultimately approved by the City Council.
The developer is still required to provide the Mayor’s Office of Environmental Remediation with an air-quality and sound-attenuation plan before the project can receive permits.
Representatives for Lefkowitz did not respond to a request for comment. Application documents indicate that Lefkowitz also owns a healthcare staffing company that will occupy one of the building’s ground-floor retail spaces.
The developer acquired the site, then home to a three-story commercial building, from the Yeshiva Beis Limudei Hashem Jewish Center for $2.185 million in 2007, according to property records.
In 2009, the remainder of the formerly industrial block was rezoned for the development of a 455-unit complex known as Navy Green, sponsored by the city’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development and developed by Dunn Development Corp and L+M Development Partners. That site was previously home to the Brooklyn Navy Yard’s prison, according to Brooklyner.