Greenland plans 41-story resi tower at Pacific Park

The 587K-sf building at 700 Atlantic Avenue will have ground-floor retail space

An aerial of 700 Atlantic Avenue with Greenland USA CEO Hu Gang (Credit: Google Maps; Gang via CGCC)
An aerial of 700 Atlantic Avenue with Greenland USA CEO Hu Gang (Credit: Google Maps; Gang via CGCC)

Greenland USA has filed plans for a 41-story mixed-use building at its Pacific Park megaproject.

The application with the Department of Buildings — one of only a few new filings to appear lately — says the 587,200 square-foot building at 700 Atlantic Avenue will be mainly residential, with the ground floor set aside for retail space.

The site, which also has frontage along Sixth Avenue and Pacific Street, sits immediately to the east of the Barclays Center and a block west from the mixed-income rental tower at 535 Carlton Avenue.

A spokesperson for Greenland Forest City Partners, the joint venture behind the development, declined to comment.

The new filings mark the latest step in a lengthy process to build out the 22-acre Pacific Park site, plans for which real estate scion Bruce Ratner first revealed in 2003. But protracted by land seizure lawsuits, the Great Recession and a shakeup in the development team, less than half of the project is complete nearly 17 years later.

In January 2018, ahead of the $6.8 billion sale of Ratner’s Forest City Ratner to Brookfield Property Partners, the company began to reduce its exposure to the Brooklyn megaproject. Forest City sold a 95 percent stake to its joint venture partner, Greenland USA — a subsidiary of Chinese giant Greenland Group which had bought a 70 percent stake in the project in 2014.

Since then, the joint venture entity Greenland Forest City has sold a total of four parcels to other developers. Greenland Forest City is bound with an agreement with the city and state to complete 2,250 below-market rental units at Pacific Park by 2025.

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TF Cornerstone in 2019 paid $143 million for two sites at 615 and 595 Dean Street, where the developer is planning to build 800 apartments. The Brodsky Organization has picked up 662 Pacific Street and the development lease at 18 Sixth Avenue.

Meanwhile, plans for another project at Pacific Park’s “site 5” have been stalled for years because of a protracted legal dispute between retailer P.C. Richard and the original developer, Forest City Ratner.

Initially, plans were approved in 2006 for a 440,000 square-foot building at the site, but that never eventuated. A two-tower project floated in 2016 also stalled. The site has since been pitched as a prospect for Amazon’s new headquarters.

Beyond the Barclays Center, the completed projects at the site include the COOKFOX Architects-designed condo at 550 Vanderbilt Avenue, and the 32-story tower at 461 Dean Street, which is billed as the world’s tallest modular structure. Two rental buildings, located at 535 Carlton and 38 Sixth Avenues, round off the list.

Write to Sylvia Varnham O’Regan at so@therealdeal.com