Billy Macklowe is making his foray into Brooklyn.
The developer’s William Macklowe Company is making a bid to buy a 1.5 block-long site in Park Slope where he can build a 300,000-square-foot mixed-use condominium project, Commercial Observer reported.
The seller of the site at 120 Fifth Avenue is Avery Hall Investments, which secured a zoning variance for the site. Avery Hall paid $45.6 million to buy the property in 2017, and could sell it for at least $80 million, according to CO.
Macklowe declined to comment to the news site, and representatives for Avery Hall did not return requests for comment.
Plans to redevelop the site, which is now home to a Key Food grocery store, have been controversial.
Park Slopers upset over the prospect of losing their grocery store pushed back against the development. Avery Hall, led by Brian Ezra and Avi Fisher, secured a zoning variance to modify a 1981 Urban Renewal Plan covering the site, which requires a grocery store on the property.
The developers signed a cooperation agreement and promised to set aside 25 percent of the project’s 165 apartments as affordable rentals. But the agreement only remains in effect until 2022. At that point, the property will revert to its underlying zoning, which allows for residential and commercial but does not require a grocery store or affordable units.
Macklowe is currently developing a 23-story mixed-use condo project in Greenwich Village at 110 University Place and a medical office building at 323 East 61st Street for Memorial Sloan-Kettering. [CO] — Rich Bockmann