BFC Partners closes on Staten Island dev site

Almost two years after filing plans for a mixed-use project in Staten Island’s Stapleton neighborhood, BFC Partners has closed on the development site.

BFC announced last week it closed on the site at 475 Bay Street, the Commercial Observer reported. The developer received a $99.8 million mortgage from the New York State Housing Finance Agency, which will go toward the project’s projected development cost of $151 million.

Plans for a project from the Empire Outlets developer were first filed in May 2020. The company has since changed some of the project’s specs, the most notable being the project will be 100 percent affordable.

According to the Observer, the 250,000-square-foot development will include 269 units. Of those, 131 are slated for tenants with a household income at or below an area median income of 80 percent, while 138 units will be for formerly unhoused seniors with an income at or below 30 percent of the area median income.

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There will be 9,000 square feet of retail space on the ground floor of the development, which will also have amenities such as a rooftop recreation area, an indoor fitness area, a children’s playroom and a lounge. Social services, meanwhile, will be provided by Selfhelp Community Services, which will receive an annual subsidy from the Empire State Supportive Housing Initiative.

“The closing at 475 Bay Street is an exciting milestone in the revitalization of Staten Island’s North Shore,” BFC principal Joseph Ferrara said. “As the first project to break ground on this newly rezoned piece of Bay Street, this development will pave the way for necessary development in the neighborhood.”

Affordable housing projects are on the rise in the borough. In October 2021, the Department of Housing Preservation and Development announced the development of a 360-unit affordable housing complex, also coming to Stapleton. The proposal for the city-owned site was submitted by Monadnock Development, the nonprofit Sisters of Charity Housing Development Corporation and The Master Group.

Outside of Staten Island, BFC Partners has a hand in several other projects, including the $1.5 billion Essex Crossing development in the Lower East Side. Once completed, Essex Crossing will feature more than 1,000 residential units, 450,000 square feet for retail and 350,000 square feet for offices.

[CO] — Holden Walter-Warner