MTA Seeks Bids to Buy 1119 Pacific Street

Before the city rezoned a 21-block area surrounding Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn, the options for transforming a parking lot on Pacific Street were limited to low-rise industrial or commercial use.

The site, at 1119 Pacific Street, can now host some 300 housing units.

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which owns the property, will release a request for proposals on Tuesday, seeking a buyer for the site, and potentially air rights attached to an adjacent property, to raise revenue for the agency’s capital program.

The agency has used the 30,000-square-foot site as a parking lot since 2009. With the combination of 34,000 square feet of air rights from the adjacent Franklin Avenue Shuttle right-of-way, a nearly 250,000-square-foot development could rise on the site, according to the RFP shared with The Real Deal.

The City Council approved the Atlantic Avenue Mixed-Use Plan, or AAMUP, in May, allowing housing to be built in an area where zoning largely only permitted low-density commercial and industrial use. The estimated 300 housing units proposed for the Pacific Street site would be among the first of the 4,600 homes that could be built thanks to the rezoning. Under the city’s Mandatory Inclusionary Housing program, at least 25 percent of the units at the Pacific Street project must be affordable to those earning, on average 60 percent of the area median income.

City of Yes for Housing Opportunity, approved in December 2024, also made it easier to merge the right-of-way zoning lot with the parking lot site. The text amendment loosened rules around air rights transfers, allowing such rights to be transferred from certain railroad right-of-ways without requiring a special permit. In this case, the developer would only need a certification from the chair of the City Planning Commission.

“City of Yes and AAMUP are really what made this site ready for development,” Miriam Harris, senior vice president of transit-oriented development at the MTA, said in an interview.

The MTA is accepting proposals for acquiring the Pacific Street site on its own, as well as those that would include the transfer of the air rights. The agency will give preference to proposals that include transit improvements under the city’s Zoning for Transit Accessibility program, which would provide a zoning bonus for the project. Bids are due May 21.