Borough Park could be heralding the future of new development in New York City.
Developers David Tabak and Meyer Lebovits have won approval to build a 14-building, 270-unit development in the Brooklyn neighborhood. The project, Brooklyn Yards, will be constructed on top of a freight rail line.
On Tuesday, David Tabak of Watermark Capital and Meyer Lebovits, secured the needed votes from the City Council’s zoning subcommittee with a slight height modification.
That essentially ensures that the project will get a green light from the Land Use Committee and the full City Council. Now, Tabak and Lebovits just have to land financing.
Borough Park is not historically a place where developers have pushed the envelope on design or construction. It’s thought of as the Old World, an area home to a large Orthodox Jewish community filled with synagogues, kosher grocery stores and restaurants. The housing stock is nothing flashy — mostly small walkups.
But Brooklyn Yards is among the city’s most ambitious projects. The design curves around four city blocks. It is built directly above active tracks. A freight train rumbles through once a day.
The MTA plans to use the rail line as a route for the Interborough Express. The new transit project will run from Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, to Jackson Heights, Queens. Other developers are also looking at development possibilities near the line. But Tabak and Levovits would be the first to build over it.
“Because the housing shortage is so severe, they are looking for non-traditional places to build and non-traditional ways to build,” said Ken Fisher of Cozen O’Connor, the project’s land-use attorney.
Tabak and Lebovits live in the neighborhood. They were walking around and noticed the rail line, said Jay Valgora of Studio V, the architect of Brooklyn Yards.
“There is this kind of moat running through the middle of the neighborhood,” he said.
Tabak and Lebovits saw an opportunity. They bought the sites for the project for $4.25 million in 2019, according to property records. A previous developer had already secured the air rights above the tracks.
Tabak, a principal at Watermark Capital, and Lebovits, along with Studio V, came up with an unusual design for New York City. Most developers seek to build as densely as possible — maximizing units to appeal to lenders.
Instead, the developers opted for classic Brooklyn row houses. Their project will be mostly four-story townhomes, along with a few six-story townhomes and a nine-story commercial building at the end, near the New Utrecht Avenue subway stop. Of the 270 units, 30 percent will be affordable.
Brooklyn Yards received the support of two community boards and, crucially, the two local City Council members. But there was still some pushback.
Some neighbors called the project a threat to change the community, according to the local news site Boro Park24. The same site referred to the housing shortage in Borough Park as a “crisis,” mentioning that newlyweds were unable to find apartments.
Related Companies built a deck over the MTA’s Hudson Yards for a megaproject and plans another one on the other half of the yards, as well as over Atlantic Yards in Brooklyn. Plans for decks to support housing over Sunnyside Yards in Queens and rail yards in the Bronx have been discussed, but remain fuzzy.
Decks over rail yards are hugely expensive and beyond the scope of all but the largest developers. Building over a rail line is more manageable — but still challenging.
If Tabak, Levovits and Studio V pull it off, other over-the-tracks developments could follow. Valgora said a group that owns a site further down the rail line has hired his firm for a study.
“It’s gone from a question whether this will be a precedent to it’s already proven to be,” the architect said. “This is absolutely the future of new housing in New York City.”
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