Crown Heights Church To Be Razed, Replaced With Apartments

New development in the rapidly-gentrifying Crown Heights has largely happened in the northern part of the neighborhood, but now Brownstoner has spotted plans for what might be a game-changer for the area south of Eastern Parkway. The St. Ignatius Catholic Church and its community hall on Rogers Avenue between Carroll and Crown Streets will be demolished and replaced with a five-story, 165-unit apartment building. Demolition permits have already been filed, and it seems that both of the buildings will be coming down, as the permits note all of their addresses, 1118 Carroll Street and 267-291 Rogers Avenue. Curbed walked around the site this morning, and no work is currently underway. The buildings have been boarded up for awhile, and there is no new construction fencing.

Filings with the Department of Buildings list an LLC as the owner, so the property may have changed hands, although public records give no indication of a sale. Permits for the new building plans are still pending, but they list Think Architecture and Design PLLC as the architect of record. Unfortunately, the plans make no indication of street-level retail or commercial space, which could bring some much-needed life to this block of Rogers Avenue. That said, the ground floor retail space of the Plex on Nostrand Avenue, the only other new construction nearby (which is fully rented), is still searching for a tenant more than two years after hitting the market, so perhaps these developers wanted to avoid that same fate.

View of the building along Carroll Street. Think Archictecture has worked with WASA/Studio A on several well-regarded NYC projects, so here's hoping this building won't just be another uninspired box. We've reached out for renderings, so we'll update if we receive them.

View of the building along Crown Street. Medgar Evers High School sits directly beside the lot on the other side of the block facing Nostrand Avenue.
· Big Apartment Building Planned for Crown Heights South on Church Lot [Brownstoner]
· Think Architecture and Design PLLC [official]