Joel Braver Ditches Resi Project in the Bronx

Joel Braver is no longer willing to brave the Bronx.

Brooklyn-based development company, Soundview Empire, acquired a sprawling vacant lot in the neighborhood of the same name for $60 million, Crain’s reported. The company closed on the purchase of the 407,000-square-foot development site at 1580 Story Avenue last week, according to property records.

The buyer secured the deal with a $158 million mortgage from Valley National Bank. David Templer signed on behalf of the purchasing entity, which shares an address with Spigro Management. Neither Templer nor Spigro Management responded to requests for comment from Crain’s.

The parcel is shaped like two connecting trapezoids and is surrounded by four existing 19-story apartment complexes known as Lafayette Estates and Lafayette Boynton Apartments. The site is a parking area, but occupies prime real estate bounded by Boynton Avenue, Morrison Avenue, Story Avenue and Lafayette Avenue.

Braver, operating through his Brooklyn-based Boynton Properties, assembled the four-lot property over several years. Records show he paid $18.5 million for one section in 2019 and another $18.5 million for two additional parcels in 2020. It’s not clear when he acquired the fourth parcel.

In 2022, Braver filed plans for a 19-story, 562-unit apartment building with 30 percent affordable housing units, though those plans never materialized. The reasons for the project’s abandonment remain unclear. No new construction permits have surfaced since.

The site is zoned for medium-density residential use.

In May, an entity connected to Camber Property Group sold two apartment buildings and a parking lot known as Carol Gardens at 820-880 Thieriot Avenue in the Soundview neighborhood for $54.5 million. The buyer was a company affiliated with Phoenix Realty Group. Camber acquired the properties in 2017 for $19.8 million; that deal was the first time the complex traded hands since it was built in the late 1960s.

— Holden Walter-Warner