Affordable housing complex to replace Brooklyn psych ward

A new affordable housing complex is slated to rise on the site of a former psychiatric ward in Crown Heights.

Brooklyn-based nonprofit developer CAMBA is to replace the Kings County Hospital’s G-building, located at 560 Winthrop Street and used as a mental health facility until 2009, with a 293-unit apartment building. The project will mark the second phase of the firm’s CAMBA Gardens, an affordable housing complex already taking shape in other former hospital buildings at nearby 690 and 738 Albany Avenue.

CAMBA Gardens II will occupy a total of 97,000 square feet. So far, there’s been no word on the types of units to be housed in the space, the rental rates or the income requirements.

The project’s first phase, CAMBA Gardens I, offers one-bedrooms for $810. Occupying couples for these apartments cannot have an annual income in excess of $41,280. Three-bedrooms have a monthly rate of $1,127, and a maximum yearly tenant income of $59,820.

“For us and for CAMBA, design is a really, really important thing,” explained lead architect John Woelfling of Dattner Architects. “We looked at potentially reusing this building, but the floor plan wasn’t right for adapting it. We needed to start with a clean slate and really maximize some of the advantages the site has.”

The project is slated for completion in 2016, the developers told DNAinfo. [DNAinfo] — Julie Strickland