Former St. Francis campus to be converted to residential housing

Henry and Justin Elghanayan’s Rockrose Development filed permits with the city this week to convert a former Brooklyn Heights college site into housing.

Three of the buildings on the former St. Francis College campus, once including dorm rooms and lecture halls, are set to be transformed into 747 residential units, Crain’s New York reported.

Rockrose acquired the former educational site for $160 million in 2023. St. Francis relocated its Brooklyn Heights campus to Tishman Speyer’s Wheeler building at 422 Fulton Street in 2021.

The project, along with residential units, will include retail space on the ground floor and underground parking for 131 cars and 375 bikes. It will stretch the entire block between Court and Clinton streets and front both Joraleman and Remsen streets.

Project permits filed by Peter Donahue, Rockrose’s senior vice president of construction, suggest an estimated price tag of $207.6 million. Donahue did not respond to the outlet’s request for comment.

One of the three buildings included in the renovation plan is 176 Remsen Street, the former headquarters of the Brooklyn Union Gas Company. Originally erected in 1914 and enfolded into the college’s campus in the late 20th-century, the building was designated as a city landmark in 2011.

Plans indicate that Rockrose intends to partially demolish 176 Remsen Street before adding four additional floors. Proposals were signed off on by city preservationists in July, records show. The other two buildings included in the plan would bookend the landmarked site on either side.

James Davidson, the architect on record for the project and a partner at design firm Slce Architects, could not provide a timeline for construction, but confirmed to Crain’s that the entire site surrounding the landmarked building would be demolished and reconstructed with residential properties. Slce Architects specializes in large-scale residential construction projects.

The project has been met with some controversy. In August, several union laborers from Laborers local 78 and 79 were arrested on charges of civil disobedience after protesting Rockrose’s partnership with Alba Services, a nonunion demolition contractor and asbestos abatement company, on the project. Alba Services has been accused of withholding payment, depriving workers of healthcare following injuries, and fighting worker compensation claims. Those arrested were later released.

– Caroline Handel