NEW YORK CITY-The NYC Department of Housing Preservation and Development announced Thursday that a team comprised of North Brooklyn Development Corp. and MDG Design and Construction, LLC has been chosen to develop an affordable, mixed-use development on the former Landmarks Preservation Commission warehouse site in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. The city-owned site, located at 337 Berry St. between South 4th Street and South 5th Street, will be developed to create 55 units of low-income rental housing along with new ground-floor commercial space for a grocery store, community space for a tenant services center, and open space for use by the future tenants.
The LPC's warehouse stored fixtures and ornaments reclaimed from buildings across New York as part of that agency's architectural salvage program. The program was discontinued in 2000, and in 2005 the site was identified in the Greenpoint-Williamsburg Points of Agreement as a possible location for affordable housing development.
The LPC warehouse is being developed under Mayor Michael Bloomberg's new housing marketplace plan. Launched in 2002 and revamped in 2010, the NHMP is a multi-billion dollar initiative to finance 165,000 units of affordable housing for half a million New Yorkers by the close of fiscal year 2014. For every dollar invested by the city, the NHMP has leveraged $3.42 in private funding, amounting to a total commitment to date of more than $21 billion to fund the creation or preservation of over 147,500 units of affordable housing across the five boroughs.
“The team of North Brooklyn Development Corporation and MDG Design bring a history of neighborhood engagement and advocacy, along with local development experience to this important project," says HPD commissioner Matthew Wambua. "I look forward to seeing this once vacant warehouse transformed into safe, quality affordable housing.
The LPC warehouse development site, on Berry Street between South 4th and South 5th Streets, encompasses approximately 15,870-square-feet. Units at the LPC Warehouse project will be available to families earning 50% and 60% of the area median income or the equivalent of not more than $42,950 and $51,540, respectively for a family of four. In keeping with the POA, the development team will also create approximately 1,150-square-feet of open space for use by the development's future tenants. Under the POA, a total of 922 affordable housing units are complete or in construction with an additional 766 units in predevelopment.
The LPC started an architectural salvage program at its 337 Berry Street warehouse in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, from 1980 to 2000. The program encouraged New Yorkers to reuse fixtures and ornaments from demolished or altered privately and publicly owned buildings throughout the City. Salvaged items such as doors, windows, fences, and decorative elements, were sold to the public at low rates and used to restore the historic buildings that are the hallmark of our City's great neighborhoods. The program ended in 2000 due to budgetary constraints. On November 1, 2011, LPC held an auction to help clear the warehouse of its remaining inventory in preparation for the site's eventual development.
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Rayna Katz
Rayna Katz is a seasoned business journalist whose extensive experience includes coverage of the lodging sector, travel and the culinary space. She was most recently content director for a business-to-business publisher, overseeing four publications. While at Meeting News, a travel trade publication, she received a Best Reporting award for a story on meeting cancellations in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina.
