Goldman Sachs Asset Management said it provided $290 million of financing for a mixed-use development in a Queens Opportunity Zone where BRP Companies broke ground this week.
The financing includes equity from Opportunity Zone funds and is part of the investment firm’s
One Million Black Women initiative, a $10 billion plan aimed at improving opportunities for Black women over the next decade, according to a Goldman Sachs news release. A spokesman for the firm declined to break the package down in detail.
The 24-story building in Jamaica, not far from JFK International Airport, will be known as Archer Towers, taking the name from its address at 163-05 Archer Avenue. The 542,000-square-foot development will include 605 mixed-income residences, 20,000 square feet of amenities and 14,000 square feet of retail space.
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It also includes 199 on-site attended parking spaces, a media room, a children’s playroom, a basketball and pickleball court, golf simulator and yoga studio. The property is expected to be completed in spring of 2024.
BRP bought the property in 2017 from developer Chris Jiashu Xu for about $55 million. In May 2020, BRP tapped the brokerage JLL to arrange $268 million of joint venture equity for the project.
BRP Companies, led by Meredith Marshall, recently completed The Crossing at Jamaica Station, a mixed-income, 669-unit residential building with an affordable housing component. It’s among the largest such developments in New York. It’s also developing the new National Urban League Headquarters in Harlem, New York, which got financing from Goldman Sachs as well.
The Opportunity Zone program was enacted into law under President Trump in 2017 and was designed to lift low-income communities across the nation. Real estate developers and investors flocked to take advantage of the federal program’s significant discounts on their capital gains taxes.
The program has come under scrutiny from government watchdogs and congressional Democrats, who say the program is a tax break for the rich. Real estate experts have also questioned the economics of the program as land values skyrocket in Opportunity Zone tracts, narrowing returns.